June Hatch-A-Long

[CluckNDoodle]

June has been such a crazy month for me! I have an incubator full of pipped Olive Eggers that I have completely neglected this month. Fingers crossed they hatch ok!

I already took the chicks from my 1st and 2nd June hatch to their new home and I didn't even do a photo shoot! That's so unlike me! lol, I love taking little chicky pics, oh well. To update, my second shipment of eggs was incredible! 100% fertility and 100% hatch rate for the Isabella Leghorns! Even the cracked egg that I put nail polish on and the sideways air cell egg hatched! (I did have to assist the sideways air cell chick but she's great)
I also hatched 2 more Buff English Orpingtons, 3 Mauves, and 1 Chocolate Orpington peep. I wasn't sure if I would get a Chocolate for sure because they occasionally hatch from the Mauve flocks. Why are the oddballs always the cutest!?

Now to wait for my poor overlooked Olive Egger hatch tomorrow morning.

 

[LadiesAndJane]

I'm sorry I wasn't on the computer most of the day! I see you've already answered your own question and encountered a chick you wish you had assisted sooner and one you wish you hadn't assisted at all. This is what makes deciding to be hands on so difficult but I find that now that I'm experienced in assisting that most of the time it's rewarding and there is a less traumatizing reason for them needing help.

As far as the crossbeak chick, they can live happy healthy lives, it just depends on how severe it is. I've raised a handful of special needs chickens and while I won't allow a chicken to suffer I'm also of the mind that if they want to fight through that I'm not going to stop them. This is how I ended up raising Peg Leg Pete, the rooster with one functioning leg, lol. The difficulty with a crossbeak specifically is whether yours will be able to pick up food on it's own or not. A mild case might not need much special treatment beyond trimming their beak occasionally. Wetting food can make it easier for them to scoop but only you can decide how far you're willing to go.

Thank you so much @CluckNDoodle ! When I decided to crack her out of the shell (she was so ready, no blood vessels at all, and came out easily once I opened it up), I knew I would have to take on the responsibility of caring for her. Looks like she is either missing an eye, which seems to be common with the cross beaks as far as I have read, or is just unable to open it. Seems there is an eye or partial eye there, hard to tell. I let her stay in the drier most of the day, and gave her some egg yolk mixed with a little water with a syringe, just dropping it onto her lower beak. She handled this well and I was thinking to do this every 2 hours. I will try giving her some ground chick crumble mash with water in a day or two.
I feel like her 2 hatch "sibs" will not be kind to her, so I will not put her with them. I tried a supervised visit with Kana, my sweet little 5 week old partridge silkie, and she let the chick snuggle up to her, so that may be a good friend for her.
I know she may not survive this, but I am hoping she has a good life until then!
I also posted on a "special needs" thread as well!

 

[Willow2253]

This is my first incubator hatch and the first egg has started zipping! I’m sorry I’m posting so much but I can’t contain my excitement.

 

[Willow2253]

First one is out! Now I can finally rest. There are 9 others pipped, but none are zipping yet so I feel ok going to bed now, considering it’s 1 am.

 

[Fur-N-Fowl]

First chick’s membrane was dry and crispy, I waited for veins to recede and helped the chick out this morning!

Second chick began making random pips all over the shell, not zipping. I removed some of the shell to find the membrane also dry but still has some visible veins. The chick really wants to be out but it’s staying in till they’ve receded!

Apparently they are Old English Game bantams!

So glad the person who’s chicks these are messaged me otherwise they probably wouldn’t have made it.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

First chick’s membrane was dry and crispy, I waited for veins to recede and helped the chick out this morning!

Second chick began making random pips all over the shell, not zipping. I removed some of the shell to find the membrane also dry but still has some visible veins. The chick really wants to be out but it’s staying in till they’ve receded!

Apparently they are Old English Game bantams!

So glad the person who’s chicks these are messaged me otherwise they probably wouldn’t have made it.

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Great job saving the babies!!

I had dry ones in this hatch too. I definitely neglected to put water in the incubators a lot this month and it was bound to catch up at some point. Lol

 

[gimmie birdies]

Meyer hatchery has a bunch of sold out birds this morning,back up for sale! I got excited, but I checked on my order and it was already packed. You can add to your order until ship day, unfortunately they cannot do anything if it is packed. I kept checking web site and added others. Best add day is the sunday before.

 

[gimmie birdies]

And now the waiting-nail biting game. (Friday is a holiday.)

 

[jolenesdad]

@CluckNDoodle no photos?!?!? Whaaaaat?

did you keep any mauve Orpingtons? You better have!

@jmns I’m so sorry about the troubles. It’s been my experience that if cross beak is enough to notice while they’re in the incubator..... it’s probably way too extreme of a case to survive. Most of the people who have success with raising a cross beak chick don’t notice for several days that it even has a small cross beak. As the chick grows a hard to notice cross beak becomes pretty bad. One that started out bad gets downright awful to manage.

there are a few FB groups for caring for disabled chicks if you’re on Facebook and you want to try for the chick, I’ll send you the links.

 

[jolenesdad]

First chick’s membrane was dry and crispy, I waited for veins to recede and helped the chick out this morning!

Second chick began making random pips all over the shell, not zipping. I removed some of the shell to find the membrane also dry but still has some visible veins. The chick really wants to be out but it’s staying in till they’ve receded!

Apparently they are Old English Game bantams!

So glad the person who’s chicks these are messaged me otherwise they probably wouldn’t have made it.

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Those blonde chicks look adorable.