New hatch with twisted foot (upside down)

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Had a spare minute, we went out and got yet another heat lamp (before I saw above posts about making something DIY). He is currently by himself in the brooder with hot water bottles and towels.... Soon to be another actual brooder.

We will soon be set up to hatch far more chickens that we likely ever will.

But it could come in handy, I'm hoping to breed our turkey poults. We were also planning on breeding half our meat chickens but were advised against it, that it's better to just buy meat chicks due to them not always living long or laying eggs.

 

[Shezadandy]

How's twisted baby foot doing today?

 

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So glad the foot is better, looks like it is standing better too in the first photo. They sure are cuties!
I've named a chick Toepicker because it would run around and peck the other chicks toes. I put it in its own pen in the brooder until it calmed down. It was supposed to be a pullet, yeah, that was a roo. He was a really gorgeous and good boy once he got older.
I recall you said it was a staggered hatch, but I don't recall the circumstances. If you put all the eggs into the incubator at the same time they should all hatch within a few days of each other. When collecting eggs you can keep them for a week (not refrigerated) and incubate them all at the same time. The momma hens do this, collect until the switch flips in her brain. Mine go: "1 golf ball, 1 egg. Must sit." *haha*

Did you candle the eggs right before lockdown to make sure they were all still viable?

We just had a third hatch this morning! So it was truly staggered, we have 16 or so more eggs in the incubator. We didn't candle till about a week ago, and all but 1 seemed to have potential (we aren't experts... some clearly were viable, others with darker shells just had shadows We thought might be something).

This all occurred because my wife was taking all the eggs from the 3 broodies and then one day I said offhandedly 'maybe we should let them hatch some'. And then one of the broodies quit with a ton of eggs under her, and I was like 'where did these come from' and she was like 'you said you wanted to hatch some' so all of a sudden we had egg overload.


I had no idea you could start incubating eggs a week later! So maybe broodie only had 2 eggs with chicken going, and a pile that weren't, which we Kickstarted in the incubator.

 

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At this point I would candle every last remaining unhatched egg - either something is very wrong or it's possible you've got a staggered hatch, maybe from a broody sitting on eggs in the coop before they went into the incubator.

Your nose can also tell you a lot - once a developing egg quits and has been under a hen or in an incubator the smell is ... yeah. A quick sniff can give you answers. And you don't want one to go pop and get decomposing chick all over the other eggs.

Excellent news on the foot and on getting the bully to settle down- hopefully that part has come to an end.

I like my MagicFly candler (https://www.amazon.com/Magicfly-Candler-Incubator-Warehouse-Exclusive/dp/B00KCKNYCY/ref=sr_1_4?crid=1RQK7EAK3A1JX&keywords=magicfly+egg+candler&qid=1652074185&sprefix=magicfly+egg,aps,233&sr=8-4) They have a rechargeable version too, I always end up getting the plug in version. The new ones are much brighter than the old ones.

Here's a link to a chick developing in a shell-less environment, it makes interpreting what you see through the shell a little easier. (the chick lives!) This isn't the viral video of the class, it's much more detailed than that. If you're not into the set-up part, just fast forward to 4:35 to get into the day-by-day development.

I only watched the key part, whoa. Will watch all later with the family.

Yep, the curled foot, splayed leg bully is perfectly fine now! Hangs out with the 2nd born just fine now, in a small brooder right next to the incubator.

As mentioned earlier, the eggs are all very staggered due to miscommunication.., I thought my wife was bringing in all the eggs from 3 broodies, but I turned out she had stopped for an unknown time and we suddenly had 18 or so 'maybes', plus more with the 2 remaining broodies when the 3rd broody quit (her pile was massive... people talk about using cold towels to male broodies quit, maybe just put 16 fake eggs under them, lol).

We had our 3rd hatch today. I haven't checked outside yet but I wonder if we have any with the broodies

 

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Oh boy - you're about to have a mess of chicks! Awesome that the first chick is doing great and has a friend instead of a victim now. =)

That is quite the hatching predicament you've got. I strongly recommend candling the eggs, every one of them and MARKING THEM with a permanent marker. I use numbers or letters. If you candle them, you can kind group them by how they look in terms of development- so you'll have some idea that that group will hatch in a relatively short period.

How long has each broody been on the nest? A staggered hatch in an incubator is one thing, but if a hen has eggs hatch under her, within 3 days she's going to leave the nest to start raising them. And of course you want that broody to have been sitting for at least 2 1/2 weeks before she's got anything close to hatching.

Unless the broody hens are completely cut off from the rest of the flock, i.e. in their own area where nobody can disturb their nests - other hens will hop in there with them, they will lay eggs in that box, and the broody will take that egg and voila .... so....
Every day every egg under the broody hens needs to be checked for fresh eggs and those fresh eggs need to be taken away.

Any fertilized egg exposed to heat from a hen will start to develop within that 24hr period.


B

The incubator has a timer, I think we're almost near the end, maybe 3 to 7 days I'm not sure. No stink, so I'm guessing most are viable? Don't know for sure.

I know to take the eggs and all, i just don't think my wife did. We have had chickens for a long time, just never roosters. Fortunately we've got two sizable coops and another half built. We're set up for breeding as well, a couple horse troughs, some plastic troughs, and I think 5 heat lamps. Still overwhelmed right now though, because we have way more in action than we planned. We just shifted the chickens from one coop to be with the other chickens to make room for our turkeys... If all these chicks hatch and I have another 20 on my hands I'll be ordering some more lumber.

 

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Holding her now. Feet look fine if holding her, if I put her down it's upside down and she can't stand

 

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Checked on her late last night (maybe a roo, it is loud and doesn't stop cheaping). It had got out of it's shoe so I made a new one and taped it on better. She had seemed improved already, only curling one toe not the whole foot. Even better this morning after checking.. I'd say one curled toe half the time, a good foot the rest.

However, now my daughter is holding her because we had a second pop out this morning, and curly toes started pecking it pretty roughly so we separated them til we figure out what to do (any ideas?)

We also fed the chickens this morning and found a dead cchick in one broody box. It had been covered a bit ib shavings and must have been dead awhile (stinky) but we somehow never noticed it. We removed it... And put her eggs in the other broody box in case it was intentional ( good idea? Bad?)


Now we are racing around trying to figure out a secondary way to keep this chick warm while we keep her separated from the other for a bit.

Baptism by fire. First hatching curled toes, dead chicks, attacks.... Yikes.

It was nice seeing the other hatch tho. A perfect circle around the egg wass chipped away, nothing like the curled toe one (it was clear she was stuck somehow and couldn't turn)

 

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We built yet another mini home for her and put hot bottles, food, water in it. We didn't want to take her out of the incubator so soon but the attack seemed a bit vicious and aimed toward the belly. We may try re introducing her if we can figure out a divider.

 

[Shezadandy]

I only watched the key part, whoa. Will watch all later with the family.

Yep, the curled foot, splayed leg bully is perfectly fine now! Hangs out with the 2nd born just fine now, in a small brooder right next to the incubator.

As mentioned earlier, the eggs are all very staggered due to miscommunication.., I thought my wife was bringing in all the eggs from 3 broodies, but I turned out she had stopped for an unknown time and we suddenly had 18 or so 'maybes', plus more with the 2 remaining broodies when the 3rd broody quit (her pile was massive... people talk about using cold towels to male broodies quit, maybe just put 16 fake eggs under them, lol).

We had our 3rd hatch today. I haven't checked outside yet but I wonder if we have any with the broodies

Oh boy - you're about to have a mess of chicks! Awesome that the first chick is doing great and has a friend instead of a victim now. =)

That is quite the hatching predicament you've got. I strongly recommend candling the eggs, every one of them and MARKING THEM with a permanent marker. I use numbers or letters. If you candle them, you can kind group them by how they look in terms of development- so you'll have some idea that that group will hatch in a relatively short period.

How long has each broody been on the nest? A staggered hatch in an incubator is one thing, but if a hen has eggs hatch under her, within 3 days she's going to leave the nest to start raising them. And of course you want that broody to have been sitting for at least 2 1/2 weeks before she's got anything close to hatching.

Unless the broody hens are completely cut off from the rest of the flock, i.e. in their own area where nobody can disturb their nests - other hens will hop in there with them, they will lay eggs in that box, and the broody will take that egg and voila .... so....
Every day every egg under the broody hens needs to be checked for fresh eggs and those fresh eggs need to be taken away.

Any fertilized egg exposed to heat from a hen will start to develop within that 24hr period.


B

 

[Shezadandy]

Update:

18 of our eggs have hatched! This guy is thriving, considerably bigger than the rest in part because he has a bit of time on them, and he's a likely rooster.

All the eggs ended up being quite staggered, our youngest is only a few days old and we still have three eggs that are viable which were claimed from our last broody to give up (all 3 have). We've been able to introduce the staggered chicks into a single brooder with no problem.

Our only lose so far was an egg cracked in a nesting box accident, and I think 2 eggs which simply weren't fertilized.

We weren't planning on increase our flock this year, especially by so many, but still worth it. We will likely need to harvest some roosters unless we get statistically lucky... We can probably take on 2 or 3 more roosters, but not 9.

Awesome, I'm so glad to hear you've had a successful experience. Yep, part of the 'fun' of hatching is all the boys. But, there's nothing like hatching your own eggs.