January Hatch Buddies?

[IdealisticRoo]

I am over-populating the world with chickens - 1 chick at a time!

For each 60-80 eggs I set, I get 1 chick!

I hatched 1 on Jan 3rd (actually 2 hatched, but 1 didn't make it), 1 hatched on January 21st (tiny Lavender Ameraucana) and 1 is hatching today!

I looked in this morning and the egg had zipped! The beak was blowing bubbles, so I turned the egg so the beak was horizontal at the top of the zip and the bottom of the zip was facing down and fluid started dripping out! I am against opening the bator, but the windows lift out for quick interfering!

I hope I did the right thing, but there was so much fluid in that egg! I am reasonably sure it would have drowned had I not turned the egg. Anyone else had this happen?

I have 2 more hopeful eggs out of this batch, tomorrow is day 21.

 

[gryeyes]

Last night I had to rescue a shrink-wrapped chick which had zipped almost all if the circumference of its egg. Careful "surgery" and liberal use of the wet Q-tip and it was free of the egg. I left much of the dampened membrane on, feeling that it needed to do more of its own kicking free.

This morning, it was out and moving around, albeit with a bit of membrane stuck to its back. Tonight after work, I'll put it with the other chicks. So there are now 3 hatchlings, each out a day after the others, Which will be in with 3 week old chicks and one week-old brick. All happy and active. These last 3 were late, so I'm thinking there just may be more that might hatch!

 

[vebyrd36]

Quote:
did you mistype and meant to say cockatiels? or did you really mean cocktails? if so, to what are you referring?

Good catch , my spelling was off there for a moment.

 

[IdealisticRoo]

Mine still has membrane stuck to its back at 4 days old. It is so cute to watch it turn and preen its back fuzz and lose its balance and tip over! Then it gets right back up and does it again! An admirable quality that shows great determination (or a really big ITCH!)!

 

[gavinandallison]

We did the same Sat night, poor little one was on the edge of quitting, totally stuck to the membrane, warm water, a sponge to drip the water, q-tips and blunt tweezers did the trick. He is a little smaller than the others, but he is also a little more special.....

 

[IdealisticRoo]

I microwaved a bottle of saline solution, tested it on my wrist and dripped between the chick and the egg. Poor thing had the lid of the egg stuck to its head and 1/2 of the rest of the shell stuck to its back!

I hate to interfere too much! Imagine what the hatchery pros must think of the effort we put into each chick! They would never get anywhere if they took my approach to chicken tending!

 

[speckledhen]

Moved 7 Delawares to the hatcher just now. Two other sets are going into Day 9 (all Delawares) and Day 4 (BBS Orps, Dels and one DelxEE). After moving the eggs over, one of them was rocking. I love that part-always have a couple rockers on Day 18.

 

[Mrs. Fluffy Puffy]

I'm putting mine into lockdown tonight.

 

[vebyrd36]

Moved all the older fuzzy butts to the chicken Hilton.

 

[tls_ranch]

Final count...well almost final... 28 chicks from 32 eggs set. I had one egg (#29) left to hatch that was a day or two behind the rest. I was taking all the chicks out to the brooder and my son picked up and accidentally cracked the last egg. The chick is still alive and in the egg, but it bled a bit. It probably wasn't even ready to pip until late tonight or tomorrow morning. I have it wrapped in a wet paper towel in the bator and made sure it's beak was clear so it could breath. I don't think it will make it, but I'll give it a chance. My son is a bit upset.

Here is a pic of all the chicks in the brooder. I checked them out and everyone looks perfect. I do have one huge fat chick that seems to sleep a lot, but I'll just keep an eye on him