I have to give a shout out to Charlie at the wilds of Pa. He did a fantastic job of packing and shipping eggs. I ordered some black orp eggs from him, and to be nice he threw in a couple WO.
All was well bator running well and steady. Set eggs out as they arrived at 8 AM and I had them home by 8:30 sitting on counter unwrapped. Thought what a great packing job. I wanted to let them sit and settle befor putting them in . late that night I set them in. They had arrived in 2 days.
I always candle brown eggs the 12th day that way I dont have any questions. I had 7 australorp eggs in with the batch.. When I candled I thought a large percentage of mine had either quit or been infertal and only a few of his..My freind who is also a vet stopped by to have a look with me as she raises bantams for a second opinion.. I set all to one side that looked clear or quit early, one by one she said these that you picked are all clear so she wanted to crack them which I find hard to do in case of embryo ..So she opened them one by one and she gently rolled the yolks and said infertal.Beleive it or not 6 of my 7 were infertil..Thought must be the january blues, they will pick up in march. and my rooster only had 2 hens in with him for 7 days. All The eggs at day 12 had no bad smell whatsoever. After she looked at them one by one she dumped into plastic bowl.
Day 18 which was monday I checked them again and the eggs were all but full and looked perfect for the time so laid them down and boosted the humidity. It turned out in the end that only one australorp eggs was fertile, so one lone ranger in there.
Last wed night we were going to get hit hard again with another storm, It was day 21 on the hatch and all were in lockdown an some were rolling around . I knew there was going to be a little bit of a delay due to I ran the temps a little lower. My boss called from work, and said dont come in today cause we are closing the clinic, first time in something like 30 years due to high winds and potential of over 20 inches of snow and they were going to close some main routes..
I thought hope husband hurrys and gets home, and I will get to stay up and watch the hatch thou I will probably sleep through the most of it.
Then the phone range..Your husband is being rushed into trauma unit at the hospital come right down. He stopped to help a freind fix a small part of siding that really could have waited till a better day.. he fell little over 20 foot off the ladder.
I thought , well you dont really think, you just drop everything and run.. the weather was getting really bad at that point snow blowing and bitter cold and just accumulating on the roads and this was at 3 PM
They said expect the worst of it after 7 PM till late next morning. I arrived at trauma, and there he was all banged up face swollen they had him all cut out of cloths and told me they were rushing him up to surgery ...It was well after midnight,my neighbor called on cell phone and said the power had been out for hours up there. I asked him to see if he could get in through upstairs door and keep the fire going, but he couldnt all doors were locked. I thought I might have left top one open.
Husbands mom and I stayed at the hospital due to we couldnt get out really..hgusband was doing well and in recovery... Next morning I called the neighbor and he said I cant get the snowplow through the drifts at the bottom of the drive. I thought at this point the hatch is gonner..I called the neighbor backi and said Go over , take johns snowplow, its bigger , more powerful and head down the driveway then over to your house to plow out. we all thought we were going to be stuck out without the county to help us plow out. That happened once here where they had to do helecopter drops to rural farms.It was back in the 50s and they still tell the story today.
tHe neighbor was thrilled that he could slice through all that snow with my husbands truck and plow. When I finnaly got home sat afternoon, it was very cold inside but pipes had not burst which was a huge releif, I started a fire right away, within about an hour after that the power came back on... I opened the bator and felt one of the eggs thought , its over this egg is stone cold.
For reasons I cant explain , something made me turn that incubator back on, maybe its when you want something so much and due to circumstance you just cant have it, Im not sure. But plugged it in and walked away.
Here is a picture from outside , you can see by the pileup on the part of the chicken roof it was between 15 and 20 and a big drift is piling up between the house and the coop.The neighbor was able to get in and feed the chickens while I was gone so all was well with them and I hasd just cleaned thier pen befor the storm hit.
The drift in that pic was waist deep parts of the hill were scrubbed clean of snow by the high winds and where it drifted was the problem
Once husband was home and settled the incubator was again running, You know how after things all happen like that , sometimes it will all hit you like a ton of bricks after it happens. I sat in the wash room and started crying. just a little pressure release. I thought I heard a muffled peep from the incubator. and I thought Boy Im tired and I must be loosing my mind, I know I need to throw those out but cant bring myself to just yet.., I hadnt looked in there since I plugged it back in.
I sat quietly for a couple minutes and sure enough I heard a peep. So I looked in and saw a crack in one of the eggs.
and about an hour later
None of these eggs should have hatched really, My husband said You might better thorw those rather than turning the bator back on it got way too cold .. It was so cold in here I could see where 3 had started pipping but the temps were plumeting and I wasnt here to move bator beside woodstove. so those didnt fare so well.
One by one three little birds hatched and were pooped from all the effort.
This was the last one hatching pipped.
Finnaly drying off a bit and getting on thier feet. There is a second delay in the time I take a picture and the camera actually takes the picture so babies were in and out out of frame.
Well Im really tired from all this, the three have been moved to the borrder and are all very quiet and content and eating and drinking by themselves. I ran out of camera batterys so will have to get some pics for update .
2 black buff orps and 1 australorp.
My husband didnt want me to embarass him by taking his picture so I wont.
The miracle chicks
All was well bator running well and steady. Set eggs out as they arrived at 8 AM and I had them home by 8:30 sitting on counter unwrapped. Thought what a great packing job. I wanted to let them sit and settle befor putting them in . late that night I set them in. They had arrived in 2 days.
I always candle brown eggs the 12th day that way I dont have any questions. I had 7 australorp eggs in with the batch.. When I candled I thought a large percentage of mine had either quit or been infertal and only a few of his..My freind who is also a vet stopped by to have a look with me as she raises bantams for a second opinion.. I set all to one side that looked clear or quit early, one by one she said these that you picked are all clear so she wanted to crack them which I find hard to do in case of embryo ..So she opened them one by one and she gently rolled the yolks and said infertal.Beleive it or not 6 of my 7 were infertil..Thought must be the january blues, they will pick up in march. and my rooster only had 2 hens in with him for 7 days. All The eggs at day 12 had no bad smell whatsoever. After she looked at them one by one she dumped into plastic bowl.
Day 18 which was monday I checked them again and the eggs were all but full and looked perfect for the time so laid them down and boosted the humidity. It turned out in the end that only one australorp eggs was fertile, so one lone ranger in there.
Last wed night we were going to get hit hard again with another storm, It was day 21 on the hatch and all were in lockdown an some were rolling around . I knew there was going to be a little bit of a delay due to I ran the temps a little lower. My boss called from work, and said dont come in today cause we are closing the clinic, first time in something like 30 years due to high winds and potential of over 20 inches of snow and they were going to close some main routes..
I thought hope husband hurrys and gets home, and I will get to stay up and watch the hatch thou I will probably sleep through the most of it.
Then the phone range..Your husband is being rushed into trauma unit at the hospital come right down. He stopped to help a freind fix a small part of siding that really could have waited till a better day.. he fell little over 20 foot off the ladder.
I thought , well you dont really think, you just drop everything and run.. the weather was getting really bad at that point snow blowing and bitter cold and just accumulating on the roads and this was at 3 PM
They said expect the worst of it after 7 PM till late next morning. I arrived at trauma, and there he was all banged up face swollen they had him all cut out of cloths and told me they were rushing him up to surgery ...It was well after midnight,my neighbor called on cell phone and said the power had been out for hours up there. I asked him to see if he could get in through upstairs door and keep the fire going, but he couldnt all doors were locked. I thought I might have left top one open.
Husbands mom and I stayed at the hospital due to we couldnt get out really..hgusband was doing well and in recovery... Next morning I called the neighbor and he said I cant get the snowplow through the drifts at the bottom of the drive. I thought at this point the hatch is gonner..I called the neighbor backi and said Go over , take johns snowplow, its bigger , more powerful and head down the driveway then over to your house to plow out. we all thought we were going to be stuck out without the county to help us plow out. That happened once here where they had to do helecopter drops to rural farms.It was back in the 50s and they still tell the story today.
tHe neighbor was thrilled that he could slice through all that snow with my husbands truck and plow. When I finnaly got home sat afternoon, it was very cold inside but pipes had not burst which was a huge releif, I started a fire right away, within about an hour after that the power came back on... I opened the bator and felt one of the eggs thought , its over this egg is stone cold.
For reasons I cant explain , something made me turn that incubator back on, maybe its when you want something so much and due to circumstance you just cant have it, Im not sure. But plugged it in and walked away.
Here is a picture from outside , you can see by the pileup on the part of the chicken roof it was between 15 and 20 and a big drift is piling up between the house and the coop.The neighbor was able to get in and feed the chickens while I was gone so all was well with them and I hasd just cleaned thier pen befor the storm hit.
The drift in that pic was waist deep parts of the hill were scrubbed clean of snow by the high winds and where it drifted was the problem
Once husband was home and settled the incubator was again running, You know how after things all happen like that , sometimes it will all hit you like a ton of bricks after it happens. I sat in the wash room and started crying. just a little pressure release. I thought I heard a muffled peep from the incubator. and I thought Boy Im tired and I must be loosing my mind, I know I need to throw those out but cant bring myself to just yet.., I hadnt looked in there since I plugged it back in.
I sat quietly for a couple minutes and sure enough I heard a peep. So I looked in and saw a crack in one of the eggs.
and about an hour later
None of these eggs should have hatched really, My husband said You might better thorw those rather than turning the bator back on it got way too cold .. It was so cold in here I could see where 3 had started pipping but the temps were plumeting and I wasnt here to move bator beside woodstove. so those didnt fare so well.
One by one three little birds hatched and were pooped from all the effort.
This was the last one hatching pipped.
Finnaly drying off a bit and getting on thier feet. There is a second delay in the time I take a picture and the camera actually takes the picture so babies were in and out out of frame.
Well Im really tired from all this, the three have been moved to the borrder and are all very quiet and content and eating and drinking by themselves. I ran out of camera batterys so will have to get some pics for update .
2 black buff orps and 1 australorp.
My husband didnt want me to embarass him by taking his picture so I wont.
The miracle chicks
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