Harvest Micromoon

[Kiki]

Lady visitor? Female familiar?

Thanks.
I like to learn new things.

 

[PoultryAnna]

Wait a minute... There are 90 quail eggs here! I'm thrilled and terrified.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

This whole thread is fascinating! Eggs, moons, solstices, gentleman callers, crazy inventions...! Who needs novels or tv, this is great stuff! (I knew what a gentleman caller was, hope you had a good time!)

 

[PoultryAnna]

Five of the backyard eggs quit. I think it's because the carton they were sitting in got wet at some point. I should have put them all in ice cube trays sooner! Oh, well. There were also some clear eggs, which isn't a huge surprise because Amy only has one silkie rooster for quite a few hens. I'm now down to only 7 backyard eggs, but those ones are going strong.

I have 9 millie eggs that are going strong and 3 that I'm not quite ready to give up on yet (one might actually make it, two I'm in denial about).

My gentleman caller flaked on me so now I'm mad at him. I told my dogs to bark a lot next time they see him walking past the house (he lives nearby and one dog has a bark just for him). I included a pic of my dog with the overdue-to-be-butchered Cornish X's just so you can see him watching over everything like a good boy. Pardon the messy deck, I was doing angry yardwork all day.

I cheered up significantly when I got 30 button quail eggs in the mail. Then I took cute pictures of eggs. I'm hoping to get a bonded pair of button quails for my composting vivarium (oh yeah... I told someone I was going to take a picture of that...). It's hard to get quails (button or coturnix) around here, so they should also sell well.

The buttons are in the bator, but the coturnix wouldn't fit, so today's the day to finish the meddlebator. No more distracting, unreliable gentlemen.

Hatcheries keep on having good deals

The pics are:
- Duck egg
- button, coturnix, and chicken eggs
- A very good dog with three chickens
- chicken egg being candled
- coturnix eggs
- duck egg

 

[PoultryAnna]

You can also just put a thick sweater on an aquarium lol!

 

[mixedUPturk]

View attachment 1893563
You can also just put a thick sweater on an aquarium lol!

If we loose power step 1 is always wrap incubators in blankets

 

[PoultryAnna]

Well, folks, it happened. I had seizures and fell off the radar, but as promised, I was still doing things in the meantime and now I'm back to show and tell.

Short version:
The harvest moon was on Friday, and I'm sorry to say I only have two chicks to show for it, one purebred splash silkie, and one blue EE/silkie cross. Only 3 millies and 4 backyard eggs made it to lockdown. I had a massive die-off due to contamination.

Long version:
The silkie hatched on the 12th with a very mushy abdomen and open navel. Not to mention, splayed legs and curled toes. I put terramycin ointment on the navel and syringe-fed the chick some electrolytes (flavourless pedialyte). She's still wearing her little chicky "snow-shoes" and

The EE-silkie hatched about 24 hours later on the Harvest Moon, which I then realized was also Friday the 13th. Not that I'm superstitious, it's just fitting because that was the grossest, gunkiest hatch I have ever witnessed. Before I even saw the chick, there was green gunk oozing out of the pip hole and the smell had attracted some flies. I'm frankly shocked that a creature was living in there, but it pipped, zipped, broke out, and started running around just like any other chick, despite having pasty butt and a ruptured yolk sac. Yikes and also wow. I decided I better bathe that baby before it dries off. I turned the hot water on in my bathroom, then put a blanket over the incubator to make kind of warmth/humidity tent, put my hands in with a cloth, wrapped the baby in the cloth, tucked it into my sweater, then made a beeline for the bathroom. I used a toothbrush and some gentle soap and she had a little spa day in the sink, lol. Once I got the gunk off, I wrapped her in a tea towel and used a hair dryer (I followed her cheeps to know what was a comfortable distance for the dryer). She kept falling asleep and I kept waking her up because I was worried she died, lol. Anyway, then I put some antibiotic ointment on her (really open and gross-looking) navel, syringe fed her some unflavoured pedialyte, and put her in the brooder. I'm using shredded newspaper and cardboard as substrate, because it's nice and soft and clean. I didn't put any food or water in because I figured they were at higher risk of infection than starvation. They're in my bedroom and I bring them food and water on command. Yes, they're spoiled, but they're also alive and chipper with healed navels and no more subcutaneous fluid build up. Plus, whenever they cheep for water, it gives me a chance to remove feces (they've each pooped twice, nice normal-looking poops, not at all sickly -- yay!) and give the little silkie some physical therapy to help with the spraddle legs.

So what went wrong?
1) Water: I've only done dry incubations before (most of my experience is with quail), and this time I had a little tub of water. I just have a hunch that it was too humid, even though the hygrometer readings were fine. Just kind of seemed dank.
2) Sub-optimal ventilation: I had the eggs in cartons and ice cube trays to keep them upright and I don't think that allowed enough air flow. I had been thinking of air flow in terms of avoiding hot spots, so I was only mindful of the temperature and not moisture accumulation.
3) Temperature fluctuations during candling: Yeah, this is where I just plain ole messed up. As I said previously, I have seizures. They're focal seizures, meaning I'm usually still conscious and usually keep on doing whatever I was doing, which is precisely the problem. There were a few times where I accidentally candled the eggs for way too long, and even once where I left them out and forgot about them after my service dog alerted me to a seizure. None of them died right away, but the stress would add up.
4) Accidentally misting the chicken eggs: I think when the eggs got wet, it's because I sprayed them thinking they were duck eggs. I have zero memory of doing that, but I have no other explanation for how the chicken eggs got wet and that's exactly the kind of thing I'd do during a seizure. They were too wet to be explained by simple moisture accumulation, plus only the backyard eggs were wet and not the millie eggs, so I'm guessing my seizure brain was coding the standard chicken eggs as duck eggs and the bantam eggs as not-duck eggs.
5) Contamination from cracked/damaged/quitter eggs: I patch cracked eggs with wax, which is normally fine, but these were the first eggs to die and I believe they incubated and spread the bacteria that eventually infected the rest of the batch. I also have a tendency to hold onto suspected quitters longer than I should, just because I hate giving up on eggs.
6) Air cells: The millies were definitely weakened by their air cells. The veins always die in the unstable areas first. Also of note: the only eggs to make it to lockdown were the ones that stuck to the side of the shell. The ones that died earliest were the ones with veins covering the whole egg. I imagine the veins were better, but less stable just because of the air cells.

Solutions:
1) Go back to doing dry incubations and only bump humidity for hatch. Also, have a dedicated hatcher that's designed to handle moisture -- an aquarium is perfect as a base because it's meant to handle both moisture and gawking. I built a fantastic little hatcher. Details to come.
2) I added holes
3) Meddlebator! I built 2.5 of them. Details to come.
4) Have dedicated duck incubator so even my seizure brain knows that chicken eggs are not duck eggs.
5) I don't think this would have been a problem is there hadn't been so many other problems, but in the future, I will definitely be culling cracked/damaged eggs more readily. I've also thought about candling at day 4 and only keeping the obvious go-getters rather than waiting for the weak ones to die off. That would mean culling eggs that aren't necessarily dead, which just goes against all my instincts, haha, so I'd have to cull them to a halfway house incubator. The point would really just be to give the go-getters the best chance. I wouldn't bother with this step if the eggs weren't delicate or expensive, though.
6) I've read that if the air cells are damaged, one should refrain from turning the eggs for the first week. The millies had quite a few that were stuck to the side anyway, and even turning those ones more vigorously didn't help. I did some research on egg-turning. Turns out the don't-turn-for-the-first-week advice isn't supported by scientific literature. In fact, turning is most crucial on days 4-7. According to this article, it's unnecessary to turn the eggs other than on days 4-7. That's super news for detached air cells, because that means only 4 days of damaging tender little veins, and early enough in incubation that you can cull the really bad ones and just leave them alone for the next two weeks (assuming you're capable of leaving things alone ). I estimate the time period for bantam eggs would be days 3.5 - 6.3 (bantam eggs take ~0.9x as long to incubate), so that's something to keep in mind. If I adopt this practice in the future, it will be in addition to meddlebatoring so that I can learn what the embryos look like during the critical turning phase and I won't have to guess based on guidelines (it's easier to observe something happening than to remember the rule and then also remember when it currently is, if that makes sense). I started to be able to predict which veins would break and how based on how I was turning them and how the air cell looked. This is definitely getting more detailed than most people are ever going to bother with and I may also decide not to bother with it, but it's interesting.

About Temporal Lobe Epilepsy: I'll reiterate that I'm off work because of debilitating temporal lobe seizures that I'm still trying to control. If anyone reading this feels tempted to judge/criticize: I've made a conscious decision to keep living life and do things I enjoy doing, even though I mess up and I don't need help feeling guilty or incompetent when things go wrong. I'd rather invent weird stuff to help me manage my disability than avoid doing things I can't already do well (I would die of boredom). This requires that I make copious amounts of errors and do things that other people don't understand. Also remember that ALL artificial incubation is experimental, even if you're following a well-established operating procedure. In short, please don't judge. Thanks!

Moon Magic! Speaking of TLE, at my last appointment, my doctor told me that TLE is where the term "lunatic" comes from. TLE produces altered perception that people used to interpret as spiritual experiences (for instance, it's suspected that Joan of Arc had TLE). Estrogen makes seizures far more likely, meaning that people like me hit puberty and start having "visions" that coincide with the cycles of the moon. It wasn't until I was driving home that it clicked for me: Oh, yeah, that's probably why I find it helpful to keep track of things based on lunar cycles, then I thought of this thread and burst out laughing. I've probably been subconsciously timing things so that my cognition is less impaired when it matters most. The temporal lobe is also in charge of keeping track of time. So... I guess I am a moon wizard, but nowadays that's just called epilepsy

Moral of the story: Give yourself and others the freedom to do whatever works, even if it's weird and you don't understand it.

The Gentleman Caller: My dog refused to be mean to him and my dog is a huge mama's boy, so I decided he must be an alright gentleman and gave him the benefit of the doubt. No regrets. He was here after the hatch and didn't think anything of me getting up to tend to baby chickens whenever they hollered, lol. In fact, before he knew what was going on, he said he liked the cheeping

The Other Eggs: Today is hatchday for the quails. The duck eggs are still alive, but I can tell they're infected by the contamination because they have some lumps and blood spots and the veins just don't look great. I'm debating if I want to cull some, but in the meantime, they're not in the same room as any chicken eggs.

Even More Eggs: I was pretty bummed not to have a house full of cute little millies, so I bought some more eggs. I got a breeder's choice dozen which had: 2 Pavlovskaya, 2 Erminette, 2 Rhodebar, 2 Norwegian Jaerhon, 1 Iowa blue (silver), and 3 Dominique. I actually emailed to double check that I was understanding the acronyms correctly, because those are some pretty damn cool eggs! I feel better now

INVENTIONS:
Yay! My favourite thing! I'm going to make a video demonstrating the meddlebator and candlerbator because that'll just be way easier. I made a delightfully simple still-air hatcher out of stuff I had lying around, too, so that's worth sharing just because it took five minutes, cost nothing, and works (what's not to like???)

I'm turning a dollar store clock into an auto-turner. The most common wind-up device in history is the clock, so this is a good start for a wind-up incubator. It could also be used manually with the clock face serving only as a guide so you can keep track of when the eggs were turned (it's already a time-telling device, after all). The knob that sets the time can be used to turn the eggs without opening the incubator. This clock also fits perfectly inside a covered cake platter (also bought at the dollar store). It's just your standard round incubator if you think about it. As a note, the fact that the turner is battery-operated (for now) is way more handy than having a wired one. So much easier to put inside a container without having to think about holes and cords and such.

Haven't given much thought to gyroscopic shipping containers and I probably won't again until I'm the one shipping eggs because, well, there's not much point otherwise

Not related to incubation, but I also knit a poultry diaper that holds little origami newspaper pouches (free, eco-friendly, clean, just throw it in the compost!). That'll get its own post, I'm just excited about it

 

[Muscovy Wunda]

Wow! You've been busy. Glad your little babes are doing okay now. Friday the 13ths moon won't be repeated again for 20years, so hopefully that means no more gunky hatches for you until then. My daughter is affected by the cycles of the moons, but for her it means 1am waking up to her standing beside the bed staring at you, and her being spacey for a couple days.

 

[Kiki]

I have only read the short version and long version so far.
I'll continue to read but it might take me a day or two.


Becareful using newspaper and cardboard. They both are very slippery which will not help leg issues. Grippy stuff is better.

 

[PoultryAnna]

I have only read the short version and long version so far.
I'll continue to read but it might take me a day or two.


Becareful using newspaper and cardboard. They both are very slippery which will not help leg issues. Grippy stuff is better.

It's crinkled and shredded, so they're having an easy time walking on it. I originally gave them different substrates in different parts and they preferred the shredded newspaper. I think because it's fluffy, the one can sort of swim in it almost, otherwise she flops over onto her side.