INCUBATING w/FRIENDS! w/Sally Sunshine Shipped Eggs No problem!

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Ok here's pics of fencing I'm getting. The wrought iron is in front. Cyclone fence would be too heavy to make mobile. Also a shot of where I need goats to work. I'm thinking maybe an octagon set up around the not so mobile shed. The height difference in landscape pic is about 10 feet top of hill to where I am. It's going to take some effort to install

700

700
yeah, it is going to take work alright.
 
@Fire Ant Farm Sorry about Dotty. I feel your pain, I had a Barred Rock disappear today. So maddening. I was out there and never saw it heard anything odd except the pigs got excited a couple of times, but they do that. I searched, but saw nothing, but it was late when I got to head counts.
 
There's just no way I can catch up, so I'll just jump in if that's okay.

I think my incubator jinx has fled the building! I am so happy with this last hatch! If you remember, I tried hatching with 39 total eggs on two different hatches. Out of the first batch of eggs I got two chicks...out of the second I got one. Not real encouraging for a beginner. But I was persuaded to try one more time to get that magic Silkie for granddaughter Katie, so I ordered eggs from @RubyNala97 and let me tell you, the difference was unbelievable!

When I first got them, I couldn't even SEE the air cells in most of them, they were that fresh and packaged that well! I had to wait until the first candle at 7 days to find them and only 4 were slightly detached at one side, just the smallest bit, so they were started incubation standing upright. The rest I was able to lay horizontally and hand turn. @FridayYet said to mark any loose sides with dotted lines instead of solid, which I did. Well, by the time I candled again the only way tell which ones had been loose was that old dotted line - they had firmed right up! When I first opened the box and checked the eggs, I managed to break one. Yeah, some things never change, do they? At day 14 one had a blood ring. So out of 16 eggs, 14 kept going.

And 14 made to lockdown! All 14...and those little embryos were dancing their happy dance in those eggs, let me tell you! Me, I kept thinking, "What the heck am I going to do with 14 Silkies??" I honestly expected another one or two at the most. We ended up with 9 out of 14...yep!!! Ain't that amazing?? And Katie got her Silkie....she named it "Smudge". I thought one had spraddle leg, and I'm ashamed of myself but he looked for all the world like a wind-up Easter Chick! But within a day or so he had corrected his little issue and it's hard to tell him from the others. One is wearing duck shoes at the moment...her feet are curled. I had to assist her hatch - she pipped at the pointy end and never made progress in something like 14 hours. She got her beak out but couldn't do any turning to zip. Her peeping was getting fainter and fainter, so she got a little help. We lost one little girl...she had an unabsorbed yolk sac and didn't look too great to start with. I did eggtopsies on the 5 that didn't hatch and aside from really tough membranes on 3 of them it's hard to say what happened at the end. They were all alive and kicking at lockdown. One must have nicked a vein because there was blood in the shell. No idea on the 5th one. But obviously the issue was with me....they were all active up until lockdown.

So here's Katie and the brood....


I think she's holding Smudge here.....not sure though. Who cares? Katie got her Silkie and look at that smile!!


She got to see the last two hatch.


The last two hatched within 3 minutes of each other. You can see the little dark one who hatched first, and the little yellow one still in the egg (the one we ended up losing) is pretty close here! You can see her in the hole she made in the shell.


The group before the littlest one took a turn for the worse and ultimately died.

All in all, I'm much happier now than I was the other times I tried hatching eggs. But I have to admit, I was pretty doggone happy to get the incubators cleaned up and put away for the year!
 
I know this shouldn't be funny, but it's funny, especially knowing that he's fine now!! But I have half a mind to name him "Puff, the Tragic Wagon" because of the big puff on his head and the way his wagon weighted him down so much his feet couldn't hold him up! (Note, the sound in the background is the exhaust fan in the kitchen...it's right behind the counter where I was taping. Sorry)

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There's just no way I can catch up, so I'll just jump in if that's okay. I think my incubator jinx has fled the building! I am so happy with this last hatch! If you remember, I tried hatching with 39 total eggs on two different hatches. Out of the first batch of eggs I got two chicks...out of the second I got one. Not real encouraging for a beginner. But I was persuaded to try one more time to get that magic Silkie for granddaughter Katie, so I ordered eggs from @RubyNala97 and let me tell you, the difference was unbelievable! When I first got them, I couldn't even SEE the air cells in most of them, they were that fresh and packaged that well! I had to wait until the first candle at 7 days to find them and only 4 were slightly detached at one side, just the smallest bit, so they were started incubation standing upright. The rest I was able to lay horizontally and hand turn. @FridayYet said to mark any loose sides with dotted lines instead of solid, which I did. Well, by the time I candled again the only way tell which ones had been loose was that old dotted line - they had firmed right up! When I first opened the box and checked the eggs, I managed to break one. Yeah, some things never change, do they? At day 14 one had a blood ring. So out of 16 eggs, 14 kept going. And 14 made to lockdown! All 14...and those little embryos were dancing their happy dance in those eggs, let me tell you! Me, I kept thinking, "What the heck am I going to do with 14 Silkies??" I honestly expected another one or two at the most. We ended up with 9 out of 14...yep!!! Ain't that amazing?? And Katie got her Silkie....she named it "Smudge". I thought one had spraddle leg, and I'm ashamed of myself but he looked for all the world like a wind-up Easter Chick! But within a day or so he had corrected his little issue and it's hard to tell him from the others. One is wearing duck shoes at the moment...her feet are curled. I had to assist her hatch - she pipped at the pointy end and never made progress in something like 14 hours. She got her beak out but couldn't do any turning to zip. Her peeping was getting fainter and fainter, so she got a little help. We lost one little girl...she had an unabsorbed yolk sac and didn't look too great to start with. I did eggtopsies on the 5 that didn't hatch and aside from really tough membranes on 3 of them it's hard to say what happened at the end. They were all alive and kicking at lockdown. One must have nicked a vein because there was blood in the shell. No idea on the 5th one. But obviously the issue was with me....they were all active up until lockdown. So here's Katie and the brood.... I think she's holding Smudge here.....not sure though. Who cares? Katie got her Silkie and look at that smile!! She got to see the last two hatch. The last two hatched within 3 minutes of each other. You can see the little dark one who hatched first, and the little yellow one still in the egg (the one we ended up losing) is pretty close here! You can see her in the hole she made in the shell. The group before the littlest one took a turn for the worse and ultimately died. All in all, I'm much happier now than I was the other times I tried hatching eggs. But I have to admit, I was pretty doggone happy to get the incubators cleaned up and put away for the year!
Congrats on the babies.
 
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