May 2020 Hatch-A-Long

[CluckNDoodle]

Geez, the deformities sounds awful! I’m really surprised that our fertility has been so good! Larry, our 2 yr old BCM roo, was only recently added to the hens, and he looks like a ridiculously incompetent roo at mating, but all of the eggs were fertile! Someone said that the bloom of BCM interferes with water loss from the egg, so I expected I might have a small air cell/wet chick in our eggtopsy, but that wasn’t the case. Do you see them pip through a blood vessel at the air cell membrane and bleed out very often? I’m wondering if I can tell whether my vaccination technique killed that chick or if it pipped through the vessel...

No, I've never actually lost one to pipping through a blood vessel. I did have a really bad one like you're describing where the entire top of the shell had dried blood but it was a blue egg and it hatched like nothing happened. I was surprised to see it as I was cleaning out the incubator, lol. Since it was only one of your chicks it's possible it was just a fluke!

 

[FortCluck]

Thanks for the help! You have so much broody experience! I’m wondering if other people have trouble hatching marans... Or maybe I’m looking at inbred purebred birds vs crosses with hybrid vigor? Naruto has been broody (staying on the nest) since last Saturday, and I’d like to collect another 4 days of eggs, so we’d be looking at about 1 month of sitting. Sounds ok.

I have maran eggs from a local breeder and I’m not having any issues yet with them. They should be hatching in 9 days. I’m going to candle tonight.

 

[2102Simm]

Well I woke up to my overachiever being out and happy with 2 other external pips. Yay more franken babies.

 

[DdachickenBoy]

I just found this thread but ironically I set my chicken eggs in the Incubator May 4th i have some that I out in there May 5th and May 6th cause I read that they can be in there up to 48 hours apart.

 

[Erin80]

First chick hatched yesterday, from my very first hatch ever.....and I had to assist. Thankfully MGG was super helpful and we got through! He got stuck zipping....we were going onto hour 3 and he had stopped making progress. We were able to take him into a steamy bathroom, finish the zip line for him (shell only) and put him back. Two more stretches and he was out, flipping around like crazy. He’s now in the brooder and the second one is zipping (more successfully and much quicker than the first).
I worry I’m just not meant to hatch if my very first chick needed assistance! I kept reading not to assist, but this guy definitely needed a bit of help. He was fully ready to come out....no blood, yolk etc and he pushed out himself once the shell was gone. He hatched from a blue egg.....mom was Ameraucana and dad is either SS or BCM.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

First chick hatched yesterday, from my very first hatch ever.....and I had to assist. Thankfully MGG was super helpful and we got through! He got stuck zipping....we were going onto hour 3 and he had stopped making progress. We were able to take him into a steamy bathroom, finish the zip line for him (shell only) and put him back. Two more stretches and he was out, flipping around like crazy. He’s now in the brooder and the second one is zipping (more successfully and much quicker than the first).
I worry I’m just not meant to hatch if my very first chick needed assistance! I kept reading not to assist, but this guy definitely needed a bit of help. He was fully ready to come out....no blood, yolk etc and he pushed out himself once the shell was gone. He hatched from a blue egg.....mom was Ameraucana and dad is either SS or BCM.

Aww, yay! Once they're zipping you're usually pretty safe to step in if necessary. It's best to let them do it on their own when possible but I'm not one to sit on my hands when assistance is actually needed.

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

I have maran eggs from a local breeder and I’m not having any issues yet with them. They should be hatching in 9 days. I’m going to candle tonight.

I certainly wish you luck and hope it goes well! I have only tried two sets, and one was a set of shipped eggs, but I seem to have trouble with them for some reason.

 

[2102Simm]

Its so fat and fluffy, this lil one has a lot of junk in the trunk! Just got moved to our brooder to await its siblings. Have 3 others with external pips, so everyone is eager to be out and about it seems.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Its so fat and fluffy, this lil one has a lot of junk in the trunk! Just got moved to our brooder to await its siblings. Have 3 others with external pips, so everyone is eager to be out and about it seems.View attachment 2135690

The cuteness!!!

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

No, I've never actually lost one to pipping through a blood vessel. I did have a really bad one like you're describing where the entire top of the shell had dried blood but it was a blue egg and it hatched like nothing happened. I was surprised to see it as I was cleaning out the incubator, lol. Since it was only one of your chicks it's possible it was just a fluke!

Even if vaccination did cause us to lose chicks in the egg it would still be worth it, because all of the chicks that I vaccinated in the egg last year are still alive as productive hens! We also just had a big round of euthanizing for Marek’s in our unvaccinated two year olds. I don’t know if you remember Susan, our silkie who was doing poorly after the death of her showgirl clutch mate to Marek’s last year? Susan is the one we rushed shipped chicks to when her clutch of marans eggs failed to hatch last summer? Susan was one of those three. I console myself by saying that we bought her another year, and it was a happy year. She was a fantastic mom! Gratuitous pics included because I loved and miss Susan.

Anyway, I’ll continue vaccinating, but I may try to adjust my technique a little. The more I’ve pondered, the more it seems to me that I injured that chick, since it’s yolk wasn’t absorbed and the broken vessel was where I would have injected. It’s funny how the commercial in ovo technique is reported to injure almost no chicks. I’m wondering if vertical vs horizontal incubation plays a part in that, since it affects how the air cell is oriented to the chick.