May 2020 Hatch-A-Long

Omg omg omg I hear chirping and I see two pips! Ruby and I are soo excited! These are my chickens eggs so I’m gonna be a grandma :love
 

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The two remaining babies in today’s hatch were severely deformed. Which leads me to believe that the old hens that I have or their rooster is the issue. Both scissor beaked, one worse than the other. Missing an eye on one side, and the other eye of both were down by its beak. The rest of the body looked fairly normal.

Better that neither made it. I didn’t have to cull them either.

One of these eggs was kind of an experiment. One was not. The hen that one of them came from had the yolk and whites separated when the egg was cracked. The whites were very very thick and not see through. The other hen mothered the two babies in the brooder box. So the older really big roo may be the issue.
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Oh no! A mal positioned scissor beak. Hatched a lot of babies, but none with this issue. It doesn’t look to be ready for help, as it’s still absorbing the yolk. Air cell is at the other end.

Two questions for the long time hatching peeps or people that have dealt with scissor beaks before... do they survive? Can they get out on their own? Obviously don’t want to help if it’s not needed.

It pipped through the bottom of the egg, I pulled some of the shell back to get a better look at its position, time until ready to actually hatch and what was wrong with it. It still looks fairly liquidy in there. I have NO idea what day it’s on :oops: Air cell looked like day 20 like the other two chicks that hatched at the time.
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Depending on the severity of the scissor beak sometimes the chick can live perfectly normally with zero special attention. My concern is that since you're able to see it already it's probably going to be a pretty severe case. Sometimes you can't even see that scissor part for a few days after hatch. As the chick grows it's not uncommon for it to get worse because it's actually a skull malformation. In mild cases the chicken may just need occasional beak trims and no additional assistance is needed. In extreme cases they require hand feeding.
 
The two remaining babies in today’s hatch were severely deformed. Which leads me to believe that the old hens that I have or their rooster is the issue. Both scissor beaked, one worse than the other. Missing an eye on one side, and the other eye of both were down by its beak. The rest of the body looked fairly normal.

Better that neither made it. I didn’t have to cull them either.

One of these eggs was kind of an experiment. One was not. The hen that one of them came from had the yolk and whites separate when the egg was cracked. The whites were very very thick and not see through. The other hen mothered the two babies in the brooder box. So the older really big roo may be the issue.
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Oh no! I'm sorry, :hugs . Were the eggs from your own flock? This looks a lot like a recent Marans hatch I had. 2 terribly deformed chicks like I've never seen before. I described it as an under bite, deformed head, and the yolk sac area looked uncharacteristically distended. Since those 2 chicks were also a different color than the ones that hatched perfectly normally and a hatch I had done just before had a chick that was fertilized by a different rooster, I assumed it was something genetically wrong with the invading rooster but I'm a tad concerned that it could be due to some weirdo virus with everything else crazy happening in the world right now. 😬

The Marans I currently have on lockdown are from the same flock so fingers crossed this hatch goes smoothly! I started with 13, all were fertilized and I had 7 quitters, that's a TON of quitters for me...so needless to say, I'm a little worried.
 
I am guessing, but I suspect this is the case because:

As the altitude increases, air pressure decreases. This causes moisture to evaporate more rapidly. (This is why water boils at a lower temperature in higher altitudes.)

Fifty percent humidity means that the air is holding 50% of the water it is capable of holding at its current temperature (and altitude). Mile-high air holds less water, so 50% humidity translates to less moisture in the air/more evaporation from the eggs. At higher altitudes, where the air can't hold as much water anyway, and the moisture in the egg can evaporate more rapidly, one is likely to need a higher humidity to keep eggs from evaporating too rapidly.
Thanks that was a good explanation. I dont believe it but still it sounds good
 
Oh no! I'm sorry, :hugs . Were the eggs from your own flock? This looks a lot like a recent Marans hatch I had. 2 terribly deformed chicks like I've never seen before. I described it as an under bite, deformed head, and the yolk sac area looked uncharacteristically distended. Since those 2 chicks were also a different color than the ones that hatched perfectly normally and a hatch I had done just before had a chick that was fertilized by a different rooster, I assumed it was something genetically wrong with the invading rooster but I'm a tad concerned that it could be due to some weirdo virus with everything else crazy happening in the world right now. 😬

The Marans I currently have on lockdown are from the same flock so fingers crossed this hatch goes smoothly! I started with 13, all were fertilized and I had 7 quitters, that's a TON of quitters for me...so needless to say, I'm a little worried.

Such a bummer isn’t it! 7 quitters is quite a bit...

Both of these eggs were my older flock ladies and their roo. I adopted them and was told that they’re all over 5 years old. I really liked the black Australorps eggs. So before she and her roo passed, i wanted to hatch a couple of her babies. The grey hen has always had weird eggs. I posted about her eggs and their contents but no one had really seen that before.
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For a half a second I was concerned it had something to do with the incubation environment, but all things are checking out great with the incubators and other hatches have been great. I think it’s Adam the roo. Knowing this, I won’t put anymore of their eggs in the bator. I’ll stick with the younger girls eggs.
 
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Such a bummer isn’t it! 7 quitters is quite a bit...

Both of these eggs were my older flock ladies and their roo. I adopted them and was told that they’re all over 5 years old. I really liked the black Australorps eggs. So before she and her roo passed, i wanted to hatch a couple of her babies. The grey hen has always had weird eggs. I posted about her eggs and their contents but no one had really seen that before.
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For a half a second I was concerned it had something to do with the incubation environment, but all things are checking out great with the incubators and other hatches have been great. I think it’s Adam the roo. Knowing this, I won’t put anymore of their eggs in the bator. I’ll still with the younger girls eggs

Oh wow, he sure is handsome! It's too bad if he has a genetic glitch.
 

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