Michigan

[Olive Hill]

Cruizer -- Since we don't use antibiotics, chemical medicines, etc. when I have one a little under the weather they get a garlic mash. May sound a little "hippie" to some, but it's a great little home remedy that has yet to fail me. And it's ingredients most people have on hand anyway, so no last minute runs to TSC, midnight calls to the vet, etc. Just mash fresh garlic cloves with a little olive oil and coax her to eat it.


Keyt -- Sorry about your loss.

 

[keyt1969]

Quote:
Oh I will! Probably not until Spring when I recover from surgery and hopefully have money

 

[RIRJen]

i got the bater all hooked up and filled with eggs!

keeping it at a nie 100 degrees and 60 humidity (thought it is bouncing up between 60-70 humidity...i'm trying to get that under control)
Hey, I've never used an automatic turner before and I'm wondering...is it supposed to turn the egg over completely? Or just rock it back and forth a little? I put X's on some of the eggs and I've yet to see them "upside down"...they're just turned a bit to the sides. Any ideas? I really don't want to have to flip 40 eggs LOL

 

[Olive Hill]

If your turner turned your eggs upside down they'd fall out.

They'll be turned all the way from being tilted fully one way to being fully tilted the other way, but not in any one turn. Each time the turner moves it moves the eggs just a few degrees, all of it's many turns together make for the entire cycle. Fear not.

What were the humidity issues you had in the past? Honestly, sometimes -- many times -- I think people's constant worry over the humidity can be more of a problem than the humidity itself. Because if you're in there messing with it all the time, that's just causing other fluctuations and disturbances in the incubation process. I also am a fan of modified dry hatching. I add water when I first set the eggs and in the warm months not again until lockdown. In the cold months I add it once more -- if I remember -- in the middle of the hatch, but that's it. I don't monitor the humidity in the bator and I don't worry if the water dries up (always does!). I always have great hatch rates. Maybe something for you to consider trying...

 

[keyt1969]

You know how when you're looking for something you can't find it, but if you stop, you do? Or if you're waiting for something to happen it doesn't, but if you stop it does? Well, same goes for eggs!

All summer long we tried every trick in the book to get our chickens to lay more. Cat food, meat, etc helped a little, but still not where we wanted it. Now we're running out of room in the fridge!

In the last two weeks we have gone from 3 eggs a day to now approaching 10 a day! I wish we could get a small fridge, so until we do we're giving them away! But, we're also asking those neighbors if they have leftovers of anything for our animals to slide them our way because our finances drastically changed in the last 24 hours too. I'm hoping to have that craziness fixed by the end of the month. Good thing I had some crocheted baby blankets I made to sell!

Another piece of good news. Our newest chickens who seemed to be afraid of going outside decided to go out on their own. That was a shock! They've spent all this time staying in the barn in the corner. I think it's because the two BLRW boys are separated. They're still getting on my nerves with all the crowing. I just can't afford to have the big red one killing anymore hens!

Whew, what a day! Hope everyone had a great day!

 

[RIRJen]

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My bater turns the eggs...like rolling them. They won't fall out cause they're laying on thier sides on a moving rack.

My humidity issues are that I didn't have enough and half the time I have to help the chicks out or they die. This was with a different bater though. We were given the bater I'm using this time. I took some pictures to show you what I have...

you can see the roller in this picture...with the other bater I have I turn them by hand all the way over and this just seems to be turning them....hmmm...hard to explain. I put an X on the top and I see the X turned to the side but never all the way on the bottom. Should I be concerned or should they be ok just being rotated?

 

[Opa]

The purpose of turning eggs is to keep the developing embryo centered in the egg. This is accomplished my rocking or rolling the egg from side to side. It isn't necessary to turn the egg over. With most turners the egg sits in a cradle with the large end up. The eggs start out tilted at approximately a 10 o'clock position and are moved to a 2 o'clock position approximately 12 times per day. It in recommended that turning stop on day 17 and it's a good idea to remove the eggs from the turner to prevent hatching chicks from getting hung up in it.

 

[Cruizer1]

Quote:
Thanks for the Garlic Mash idea.....I hate giving drugs to anything.

On closer inspection I think it might be sour crop, it's all puffy and she is drinking water almost constantly and her stool was pure water which makes me think a blockage. I did massage her crop last night and she did throw up a smelly mess...but she is still puffy. Her stool this morning is a little more normal looking. Is this a sign she is improving? I took her crumbles out and gave her yogurt....

 

[Olive Hill]

I have never seen that kind of turner before, looks like it works in much the same manner though. Just turning the eggs side to side instead of end to end, but still at a few degrees at a time. If it tried to roll them too far I'm thinking it would require the eggs get too much momentum in order to get over and that could be a problem if they went rolling into each other, all over the bator, etc.

Just a thought, low humidity can be the reason for chicks to get stuck in their shells, but inadequate turning can also result in poor development that makes them unable to get out. There was a study done with goose eggs in France, I think it was, wherein they found that end-to-end turning of 180 degrees, rather than side-to-side turning resulted in better hatches. And I wonder how applicable that is to chicken eggs.

We do tend to see those that hand-turn having more hatch problems than those with end-to-end auto-turners. But then, hand turners are also opening their bators several times daily which makes for another very big variable in the hatch methods. So, I guess, in short what I'm saying is that I'll be interested to see what results you have with this turner since it's turning side to side, rather than end to end and at the same time, removing the open-bator variable.

Of course we could also -- and pretty accurately, I would wager -- theorize that the several times daily opening of the bator, rather than the method of turning, is a big enough variable it would be causing the low hatch rates in and of itself. Opening the bator reduces humidity, temperature; reaching in and moving eggs is a major environmental disturbance, etc. etc.

And just another thing to think about, I also have found with my own hatches that "late hatchers" -- those that hatch at day 21, rather than a bit early -- tend to be more likely, regardless of humidity in the bator, to become "stuck" in the shell. My theory is that these chicks are less vigorous, non-thrivers so to speak. And it is what it is, nature-wise. There is never more than one per hatch, so it is acceptable to me. But, theoretically, if one were having a number of non-hatchers in each batch and was also noticing hatches on day 21 or after the two may be related. We know that slightly hotter bators can contribute to quicker hatches -- just by a half a degree or so -- and so, it seems, it might be an interesting variable to play with as well. If you could "force" the chicks to be thrivers via forcing an earlier hatch with the temperature...

Fun things to experiment with if nothing else. Here's hoping for a good hatch for you, regardless.

 

[Olive Hill]

Quote:
Thanks for the Garlic Mash idea.....I hate giving drugs to anything.

On closer inspection I think it might be sour crop, it's all puffy and she is drinking water almost constantly and her stool was pure water which makes me think a blockage. I did massage her crop last night and she did throw up a smelly mess...but she is still puffy. Her stool this morning is a little more normal looking. Is this a sign she is improving? I took her crumbles out and gave her yogurt....

I wondered about sour crop when you said she vomited liquid. Is there a hard or solid mass in the crop, or is it soft/filled with fluid? If it is sour crop, fluid filled, you can drain it and that will likely get her feeling better rather quickly. Hold her body in one hand and her head in the other (or have someone help you and one person holds the body, the other the head) in one fell swoop turn her upside down, being careful to keep her head extended downwards. Do this somewhere it won't make a mess you care about -- over the bathtub or outside. And, if needed, gently massage the crop towards the ground. The fluid should drain out -- in many cases without any massaging. They say you should only hold the bird like this for a few seconds at a time. No more than 15 or something like that, but if the crop is full of fluid you will have a hard time turning her back up until the draining slows and that can take a little longer. IME, holding them upside down longer isn't the end of the world. I wouldn't go more than a minute, but more than 15 seconds is certainly fine. Give her a break for a minute and then try to drain again until you feel you've gotten the majority of the fluid out. After that give her a strong garlic mash or antibiotics of your choice to help flush out the pathogens that build up in the fluid in the crop and get her on the mend. Also keep an eye on her for more fluid build up that would need to be drained and if you've got her in quarantine make sure she has access to some grit, just in case.

I had a turkey hen with a nasty case of sour crop last summer and this worked like a charm for us. I drained her just the once, fed her garlic mash twice a day for the next three days and she ate grit like candy after being drained. She recovered completely. And is still here with us.