- Mar 31, 2013
- 7
- 0
- 7
I have other chickens, but recently ordered some fertile eggs on ebay. I ordered 6 black copper marans and the girl sent me 10. Unbelievably, all 10 hatched and are doing well! My second group I ordered were lavender orpingtons. I ordered 6 and received 8. After candling them, I found two eggs to not be fertile, 3 eggs had blood lines and were not developing, and 3 eggs seemed OK. The 3 eggs that were left started to hatch. The first one was OK, the second seemed to have some trouble getting its balance, and the third never really got out of the egg, even though it had pipped. It was a genetic mutation- a little mouth opening and closing and a beating heart and breathing, the body was just a big liver or something- no legs- don't even know if it had eyes. Everything seemed to going ok for the first few days with the two orpingtons left. Now the second chick has trouble getting around- one leg doesn't seem to work properly- like it almost doesn't want it to touch the ground! The chick will get up on its one leg and stick out a wing and wobble and then sit down. She is eating if I put food in front of her and cheeps loudly if she is taken away from the other chicks. They step on her and she will stand up but then fall right down. Most of the time she sits and sleeps. I really don't know what to do- it's almost like it's progressing. Like maybe she has mini seizures or something- sort of shakes once in a while. My first batch of eggs had stickers that said NO X-RAYS - eggs. The second didn't have this. Do they even X-RAY boxes at the post office? Would that have influenced these problems? Should I wait to see what happens? I was thinking maybe if the chick developed some it would outgrow this problem. Now I have put her in a separate box inside the bigger house I have for the chicks. No one has pecked on her yet. Any suggestions? Thank you!
