My first shipped eggs! An incubation adventure

[jcbrownacu]

Very excited for you!

 

[PrairieChickens]

White egg hatched! It's a Polish crested mix! Waiting on the others...

 

[Peep-Chicken]

White egg hatched!  It's a Polish crested mix!  Waiting on the others...

Pics!

 

[PrairieChickens]

Four more home-grown eggs have externally pipped, and one of the shipped eggs has internally pipped! I will likely have more babies to announce in the morning.

 

[PrairieChickens]

Quote: I'll try to get some pics for you tonight, but it may have to wait until morning. Stay posted!

 

[PrairieChickens]

This is the only photo I was able to get of Lonesome for tonight. She(?) will probably be more cooperative for photos tomorrow.

And here's a couple of her future friends.

 

[PrairieChickens]

Chick #2 has hatched! Its mother is Hedwig, a hen I hatched from the same incubator 8 months ago--how cool is that? Pictures later--for now I have to take care of other chicken stuff before the rain returns.

 

[jcbrownacu]

woohoo! keep the pics coming! i still have 7 viable eggs so im only a few days away!!!

 

[PrairieChickens]

The chicks are hatching faster than I can keep up with. I thought I had five chicks total, but discovered a 6th! A shipped egg has externally pipped, another is internally pipped. Several homegrown eggs are pipped.

 

[PrairieChickens]

13 home grown chicks have hatched and are doing very well, but it's not looking good for my shipped eggs. Candling reveals no movement in the remaining four eggs, even the one that had pipped internally, and the chick that had pipped externally has hatched, but isn't doing well. It looks like the yolk sac didn't absorb properly, and the chick is laying in the incubator with its eyes closed. I don't expect it to survive.

Were it not for the rampant success of my own eggs, I'd currently be feeling like quite the failure. This is very disappointing for me since I had been eager to try hatching many more shipped eggs in order to get breeds I haven't been able to acquire otherwise, but if this is the sort of experience I can expect, I don't know if I could bear it.


Trying to focus on the 13 chicks that have hatched (and the remaining eggs still to go) rather than think about the shipped egg failure.