Messing With Mother Nature, am I wrong? Discussion, Opinions.

[usschicago1]

Hello Everyone,
I have been somewhat of more than a lurker than a poster lately. But I do love following the egg incubation threads and seeing everyone's new hatches !

Now, I see this more than ever, people saying how they go in & "help" there chicks out of the egg

Isn't this going to ruin poultry GENETICS in the future. Now I realize if you help a chick out, you ARE saving THAT chick! Yay, congratulations, but, if you keep breeding chicks who need help out, were going to run into a problem somewhere down the line right?
I do a lot of incubating year long, mostly for other people. I have had hens kick out eggs that are alive and look perfectly good, and leave the chicks to die! They MUST know something is wrong with the chick that we don't. I think the same thing applies to incubation. I have had hatches with all eggs make it to lockdown, with perfect temperature and humidity, and have terrible hatches. I would rather leave the chick to die in the egg and have a bad hatch, than have a good hatch with all chicks needing assistance. I have read posts of this same side, people saying eventually through selection your hatch rates will rise as you select for birds who 's eggs have better hatch rate.

I have done some reading myself on it, in the genetics of the fowl, it says, of the 21 lethal genes known to date in fowl, at least 16 are fatal to some or all homozygotes during incubation, and the other 5 exert themselves after hatching. pg. 456 So, you could be helping getting these genes into the future, along with even lower hath rates. Some fatal genes are Crooked Neck Dwarf, Blindness, Bilateral Microphthalmia ( total blindness, often found in chicks dying late in incubation)


So, I will change my opinion if you can show me the literature to help chicks out. But for now, I urge you to incubate more, with lower hatch rates, and SELECT for higher hatch rates.
I would really love to hear YOUR opinions, in a KIND Discussion !
Thanks
Mark

 

[Omniskies]

I'm going to play Devil's Advocate here. I usually don't help chicks out since I hate opening the incubator once they go into lockdown, but occasionally I will.

I can almost guarantee that well over half of the chicks that are helped out are helped because of user-error, not because there is something genetically wrong with the baby. People who are still trying to sort out this whole hatching thing and have put in humidity that is too high or too low. People whose kid kept peeking into the incubator on that last day to keep looking at the babies.

Oftentimes the chick is stuck because of humidity or temperature issues.

Admittedly, you can never tell whether the chick is stuck because you screwed up or because his genetics screwed up. But I think we'd be able to pinpoint chicks with crooked necks or the ones that are blind and cull them out of our breeding program regardless.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

The lethal genes are already present in the genepool, and I am not aware of any that are lethal when only one copy of the gene is present (although I have NOT read that section of Genetics of the Fowl). So, the chances of the chick NOT dieing because it was helped out of the shell is not the issue. It will not change the lethal nature of the gene; that chick will still die because of whatever abnormalities the double dose of the gene causes. The chance of reproducing and passing more lethal genes into the populace is at best remote. Now if you were to identify all PARENTS of the chicks born with lethal genes, you could eliminate them and reduce the presence of lethal genes in the genepool, but realize that some breeds and standards require the presence of lethal genes: araucanas and japanese bantams, for example.

 

[RioLindoAz]

You definitely brought up a good point...One that I certainly agree with.

I think its the chicks that are able to get out of the shell faster, regardless of the incubator's issues, that should be bred. It would ensure the hardiness of future generations and increase the egg's ability to hatch faster over time.

I'd be happy to listen to other's opinions.

 

[MrsPinkKitty]

You might be on to somthing here.I have put litte bands on my chicks to keep track of them. I mark what chicks i have had to help and i have noticed that the ones that i have help almost 80% of them dont make it to 2 months old. Somehow they die. Have you seen this same thing?

 

[ksf59]

And I would counter you Omni. I will speak from some praticall experience form 20 plus years breeding sheep. The chicken venture is new, but I have raised other stock my whole life. We used to go to extremes to save all lambs. Most due. They are worth something alive and nothing dead, as with any stock. However, in some breeds ,human intervention has ceated such a weak gene pool that they can hardly be rasied with out aid. We would check the ewes around the clock, tube all most all newborns to get first milk into them, many other "normal management" things. We would vaccinate, feed ect. Any way. 1 year our son was in wrestling. He was very good and we made the committment to make every meet. That meant in the heart of winter, in northwest iowa winter, our sheep had minimal intervention. We provide a well ventilated . climate contolled barn for them to lamb in. They have daily monitring, and are fed appropriately. We did have quite a bit of Darwaniam culling that winter. Ewes that were poor mothers, had bad maternal instincts, no common sense, ect had a very tough time with out intervention. They were culled . We save replacemenst from teh survivors and rebuilt from thier. We now enjoy virtually trouble free lambing, even thsi year with 40 plus inches of snow and 25 plus degrees BELOW normal our already rather frizid temps.We still vigiorly apply darwaniam culling theory, but really do not have to assist many in birthing or rearing thier babies. Not to say they are neglected or mis treated. They are check as often as I feel they need. They are very vaulable thsi year, with 80 lb lamb bring about 160.00 per head, record highs, We use computer progams to moniter thier feed rations and maintain a climated contolled, area for birthing ect. This year apperas to be the best year ever, and I know that it goes to years of natural culling and miniaml intervention. Again, since we do not allow them to live freeely roaming the praires, we need to be consumate caretakers of all of our animals. They are completely dependent on us for thier livelyhood, But in nature, the unfit will be eliminated from the gene pool. In other words, even though you may have had temp flucuations, and kidos open the hatcher , and all the other reasons we can justify to assit, Some of the animals did survive and did so inspite of our "assiatance" These are the animals that we need to use in breeding progams. I am conviced that liveablity and vigorous behavior would impove dramtically in chicks. we will see. We heple some hatch about a year ago, thinkinh I had messed up, humidity ect. They were never thrify and eventually were culled. I ahve upgraded my equiptment, improved my nutrtional progam,gained a years experiance rasisng fowl. and am hatching a much higher percentage of healty chciks. I can hardly wait for the next gen, as I would expect to have more improvement.
That is wahts making rasisng stck of flock so much fun. But we do have resposiblities to be astute caretakers of our anaimls, and part of that is to responsibly cull as well.

 

[RioLindoAz]

^Great Post.

I appreciate you showing us your experiences with your "natural culling" method. Made me really think about how I'll be breeding animals from now on.

 

[Omniskies]

However, I don't see how that has anything at all to do with poor management.

I understand culling out sheep with poor mothering instincts - we do that with our rabbits. We won't keep anything that produces small litters, scrawny babies, doesn't pull any fur for the nest, etc (with allowances made for first-time mothers).

Egg incubating is a little different. I think that most of the problems are _user-based_ not genetics-based. While it's true that not helping the babies out will probably produce more resiliant birds that are more forgiving of the wrong temperature, wrong humidity, or being dropped on the way to lockdown, that doesn't mean that the babies that are less tolerant are genetically worthless.

MrsPinkKitty, I've never banded the ones I've helped out. There really aren't all that many of them, so I guess I don't have an excuse and really should band them. I'll try it the next time I end up helping something out and see whether the baby makes it more than eight weeks. Personally, I don't like helping the babies out, but when I open the hatcher to collect everyone and find someone stuck in a shell I just can't leave it there to die. I'd rather give it a chance at that point than throw it in a bucket with the rest of the bad eggs and let nature take its course.

 

[ksf59]

I was just pointing out an oposing veiw. I also can not just throw them in a pail. But I make sure that they do not go in my breeding pens.It does not matter if it was my fault. Some of thier hatch mates made it , inspite of my mismanagement. This is a good discussion. And I agree, I have hatched about 200 new chicks since september. I have helped 4 or 5. All one bacth. I was working the kinks out of my sportsman, and had them 2 wet. Way sticky.Completey my fault. However next clutch, same parents,proper humidity. still had some trouble. Culled roo, becuase his color was not quite up to what I wanted, new roo, no problem. So I think that my mistake may have coumpounded a weak link. I am fortunate, I have enjoyed my chicken craze, and compared to sheep its cheap, so do not mind hatching, and growing out 300 or 400 to see what problems I may have. I am pretty good rooster hatcher, so will have plenty to choose from, and have a pretty good market for excess. Many are not so fortunate. We also own our 6 acres in the country, so don't have to worry about that, and have ready market for homegrown eggs, so can be choosig about breeding pens. I have been breeding trio's and quads, but may go to single mating of select birds.

 

[robin416]

As someone who is not new to chickens or to both hen incubation and artificial I can address the helping a chick out with statistics that would put not helping a stuck chick because it is weak to bed.

Over the years, when I used the bator, I've helped chicks out. When done at the right time those chicks go on to be as healthy and strong as its sibs. Artificial incubation is a science but without the absolute best equipment that science takes a few twists and turns. And its up to us to learn when its our problem and not the chicks'.

During the drought here I had to help a single chick that was incubated by a hen. The first and the last I helped not artificially incubated and it too went on to grow up with its sibs.

There is a huge difference between mammals and birth between chickens and hatching.

As Sonoran already state, lethal genes are exactly that. It means there is not chance for life. Most die in the shell never making it to pip. The others die shortly after.