Humidity and Ostrich egg incubation

[Nicophorus]

Using burlap sack material as flooring in brooder pen for now. Never had them on newspaper or bare concrete. Just now moving them onto sand/dirt/shavings barn floor for exercise during the day.

How would one hobble? twine or tape between the legs? I suppose I shall try it.

 

[29PalmsRanch]

Using burlap sack material as flooring in brooder pen for now. Never had them on newspaper or bare concrete. Just now moving them onto sand/dirt/shavings barn floor for exercise during the day.

How would one hobble? twine or tape between the legs? I suppose I shall try it.

Ok burlap is going to slip against anything other than rough concrete. Rubbermaid mats - Home Depot/Lowes. You can pressure wash them with a weak bleach/water solution and get them sanitized quickly. Be careful about what you put them on. You don't want them eating a ton of sand yet. They are still really young. When they hit 2 weeks or so, if you have a chicken tractor, mow a section of grass to 2 inches and then rake it to get the cuttings out of it. Put food and water in the chicken tractor and then put your little ones in there. Oh hang a brooder light. They will duck under it to warm up if they get cold. Take them out for an hour, 3x per day. Until then, you'll want to keep them with a brooder light with food and water on whatever schedule you are doing. A lot of people limit intake for the first week to so to give the bird a chance to absorb its yolk sack. I offer feed and water from day 1. When they are hungry, they eat. When they are thirsty, they drink.

I'll find a video that explains hobbling a lot easier than I can in words.

 

[Nicophorus]

I've used some tape to hobble the two legs closer together. Not 100 percent sure on how closely I should tape the legs together with a ostrich. When the chick sits the legs are both straight and correct, when she stands the bad leg still wants to angle out, despite the tape.

 

[29PalmsRanch]

I've used some tape to hobble the two legs closer together. Not 100 percent sure on how closely I should tape the legs together with a ostrich. When the chick sits the legs are both straight and correct, when she stands the bad leg still wants to angle out, despite the tape.

You want to make a sort of 'shackle' on the affected leg. The shackle should be offset from the middle of the front of his/her leg to the direction the leg is pointing to at the same angle. So if the leg is at 3 o'clock when it is standing, you want to make "3 o'clock" from the center front of the affected leg. Then, pull that leg around and anchor it to the other leg. Just one piece of tape isn't going to do it. In essence you are mobilizing sideways movement of the actual thigh. Make sense?

 

[Nicophorus]

Shackled him up, but of course he can't (yet?) walk that way and proceeded to scrape his little exposed yolk sack open some. I got him in a bucket now lined with burlap to kind of support him in a upright position.

Not optimistic though. How long do Ostrich need to remain "shackled" before the connections heal themselves? In the ones that worked that is.

 

[29PalmsRanch]

Shackled him up, but of course he can't (yet?) walk that way and proceeded to scrape his little exposed yolk sack open some. I got him in a bucket now lined with burlap to kind of support him in a upright position.

Not optimistic though. How long do Ostrich need to remain "shackled" before the connections heal themselves? In the ones that worked that is.

2 - 3 weeks for the tissue to grow back. Can you take him out of the bucket, stand him up and take a short video or pic? Upload a pic or put a youtube video link here. Let me see how you have it rigged.

I remember a 1st time ostrich hatcher who drove from Florida to backwoods Alabama who wasn't optimistic about his hatch either, and everything worked out Between the community here who actually knows ratites and I, we'll get you through this. The only thing that isn't conquerable is ostrich wasting syndrome. And we don't even need to worry about that at this point. Just make sure everyone has equal access to food, water, and sunlight. That's what I forgot to tell you. UVB rays are INCREDIBLY important to chick health. If they aren't seeing a lot of sunshine, I hang UVB fixtures like what you would use for bearded dragons to simulate the sun and give them the light spectrum they need to thrive. This immobilized chick would DEFINITELY benefit from UVBs, no doubt about it.

 

[Nicophorus]

eeek, one just died.

This little guy went down hard and fast. This was not one of the two show-yolk chicks either, but was a tad smaller then the others. I kinda thought he was sitting down/resting more often then the others yesterday, and today so more of the same and started to take notice. By mid afternoon when I noticed he did not move from a resting spot for a good long while I knew something was most def wrong and he started to show obvious weakness signs. He went down very fast from there, despite me giving him some subcutaneous fluids (lactated ringers and thiamine) he was dead by 6pm. This was a chick that hatched exactly one week ago btw.

Four out of six left, and one is a cripple.

Hoping for 2 strong females and a male out of those four. Keeping fingers crossed..

 

[29PalmsRanch]

Which one did you help out of the egg?

 

[Nicophorus]

The current cripple one. He was making zero progress and had one leg stuck out a hole in the egg. Perhaps hurt the leg in that position.

 

[29PalmsRanch]

The current cripple one. He was making zero progress and had one leg stuck out a hole in the egg. Perhaps hurt the leg in that position.

Remember what I told you about helping a chick out of the egg? With anything else you can sometimes make it work. Other people may have had different experiences, but me? If they aren't strong enough to get out of the egg on their own, they probably aren't going to make it. You'd be amazed at what kind of positions they can get out of. I had one who somehow busted both wings AND legs through. Somehow he managed to pip at the bottom of the egg and continued working upwards until he had that shell off of him. I banded that one because he took 3 days to hatch and it was one of the freakiest ostrich hatches I had seen up until that time. He's 6.6' now and HUGE.

You are just going to have to play this one by ear. With respect to his leg, it's possible that he weakened that tissue if he was rotated or attempting to rotate with the leg stuck out. If you want to give the little one some energy, a weak molasses/water mix, just a small amount, 10cc's or so may help. With weak ones, it's touch and go at best.