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[Cornychick]

I have a confession to make. When I was refreshing my sponges, I grabbed an egg and candled it. There's a chick in there bouncing around but no one wants to pip!!!!!
I don't know what I expected, but I don't guess I was prepared for the total lack of any activity after locking down wednesday night.

 

[kathyinmo]

I will confess, too ....

No Orps .... I am just sick. One had a pip ... almost at the very end of the small end. As soon as I noticed it, I went to rescue it. It was too late, and it had already died, with it's little beak outside the shell.

Then, as I reached over to grab another one of the Orp eggs, I bumped the thermometer that is clipped on the top shelf.

It dropped and smashed one of the eggs. It was alive ... blood all over, no saving it. I am so angry at myself.

The other 2 Orp eggs were dead in the shell. It appears one quit before day 18; the other was fully developed and was also upside down in the shell. These 2 eggs I had noticed the, "funky," aircell in. It had looked almost like the aircell was on the side.

I'm so sad, and mad at myself. If I had noticed the pip earlier, maybe I could have saved that one. If I hadn't been so clumsy/careless I would probably have that one. Those 2 eggs I feel I could have had chicks from...

 

[Cornychick]

OH!!! I'm soo sorry!

 

[DAFox]

Quote:
Keeping my fingers crossed, too!

I went into lockdown yesterday afternoon without a peep, pip or zip. This morning I went to check the bator and I heard really loud peeping. I had 2 chicks born on day 19!!! And they are fine, so far. These two are from my eggs -- one Silkie, one LF (perhaps a black sex-link). Keeping my fingers crossed for Kathyinmo's Silkies. I'm really hoping for a couple of buffs.

Congtats on all the Chistmas chicks!!!

Dale-Ann

 

[miss.eggonomics]

i feel so bad for you!

 

[DAFox]

Quote:
Oh, no!

Dropping the egg was an accident. And an upside-down chick, how were you to know? Try not to feel guilty.
Dale-Ann

 

[Cornychick]

OMG OMG OMG!!!!! Someone in my bator is cheeping!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Poco Pollo]

Quote:
Go chicks! Go chicks! I'm thinking happy thoughts for your anticipated hatch.

 

[sangel4you]

COME ON CORNY CHICK!!!

Ok everyone...I have much to tell. But first I want to thank you ALL for your kind thoughts, advice, and prayers!!!

There is good news and bad news. Let me start at the beginning.

I WAS SO tired last night from being up from 4am yesterday and late the prev night that I fell asleep listening to the bator last night. We had two in there at that time hatched and as many of you know, ALL had pipped (I thought so anyway apparently one was just a scratch...anyway...) DH was up playing PS2 and keeping an eye on them for me. He woke me up three times between midnight and 3am to show me that I had ones hatching. YAY! So I had 5 at 3am and DH couldnt stay awake anymore so I fell asleep next to them WITH A LAMP ON AT MY HEAD. (thats key)
A short bit later, I wake up and notice the light is off, take a peek in the bator all looks ok with a quick glance, my newbies are resting, etc. Didn't look at the clock and fell back to sleep. Wake up again at 4:30. Notice light is still off and remember thinking "hmmm DH never asked me if I wanted the light off. Then I notice the battery light on my laptop is blinking a warning nd look in the bator. The HUMIDITY is SKY HIGH at 86%! I get ready to open the lid to let some out thinking I must have had more hatches, when I notice the temp is 82! OHHHH NO. That's when everything made sense, I dashed upstairs to be sure none of the usual lights are on and panic trying to come up with a plan. I did everything I told you all about. Then my battery died and last I knew power was to return at 6:30. WEll of course by 7am it wasnt fixed and I was panicking. Temp in the bator was high 70s low 80s but I feared the super high humidity levels and decided to take out as many sponges as I could VERY QUICKLY. That didn't help much so I realize I must get those babies out of all that moisture so that even if I cant save the eggs, I dont make them worse. So I thought about this for awhile and woke DH up and told him what was going on.
He mentioned that he had some hand and body warmers (also to those that mentioned water, you'll see I used that later but our water pump runs off electric so no water either.) so I decide to put the eggs as close together as I can cover them with one of the moist towels that was in the bator, put a large body warmer over the top of them and close the bator then coverit with blankets. I also moved it next to the gas fireplace which I had running on the whole time (phew 84 degrees in the house!)
I grabbed a lunch box, put handwarmers in the bottom covered it with towels and put my thermometer in there. Then I took each chick dried it as best as I could while sitting in front of the fireplace and put them one by one in the lunchbox with the top propped open. They were actually a bit toasty in there I think as they kept trying to climb out to me, so I had no doubts about them being ok.
The bator humidity finally went down to about 78 which I figuredI can live with since I did a dry hatch earlier. The temp was 80-84 (air temp) but I think the eggs were warmer bc they were covered with the handwarmers.
Stayed like this for 5 hours. Apparently power went out around 3:30 according to my mom. finally at 9 I checked the bator temp and it was slowly dropping so I decided it was time to call my MIL (whose house I was supposed to go to later today) and see if they have power. They do. BUT my MIL despises animals so I was scared to ask, but I did ask if I could bring my bator and brooder over since the power was out and we were going to be there all day anyway. She said I could put them in the shed and use the power there. So I packed them up all snug in their lunch box and blankets around the bator etc. I decided to partially zip the lunchbox closed for the trip since it was SO windy. Bad move. Get there about 1030 and start unpacking the bator first since I was having trouble more maintaing that temp and discover in all that time- ONE ZIPPED! and was waiting to pop it's top until I took the handwarmer off. I couldn't believe it! Not only that, but my other pips were still working away! I quickly listened to them all and there was one that I couldnt hear anything from and also couldnt find the pip I thought I had previously seen. Got them going and went to set up brooder and put babies in. During all this, my MIL was trying to do what she could to help get set up etc and as I was hooking up heat lamp she went to start picking up the babies.
That's when she said "Shelly, look at them (DS was present) they don't look good." I noticed they all look VERY tired and lethargic but the ones I quickly scan are breathing so we start moving them over. (At this point I had 7 in there). After the first fou I got to grab the next one and see how limp it looks. Go to the next one, and the next one. All three...dead from suffocation by their peers. :-( So that was sad because we had been SO LUCKY having all 15 we set on day 1 pipping etc and then to lose three AFTER they're born for something stupid.
So I get the rest set up and one of them was one that still had it's umbilicus attached and shell to so it had been in a seperate bowl and had me a little worried, but when I put it's bowl in the brooder, it became all active and climbed out to its peers snapping it's umbilicus. It did bleed a bit so I put some cornstarch on it and did try to keep the other away from it as best as I could. Later when I checked it, it was doing good. a bit tired still (but it was one of the newest) but good.
Temp in bator had spiked to 106 in the time it took me to quickly shower and eat some breakfast and that scared me on top of everything else...talk about extreme temps!!! Anyway, through our dinner there and gift exchange, etc we were there until about 6:30 this evening and in that time, 4 more hatched for a total of 8. Called to make sure power was back on and came home (after doing a better job packing them up and maintaining non-smooshage!) and leaving the newest two chicks in the bator (I was afraid the others would be too hard on their fresh bodies during the trip) along with the 4 eggs left, 3 of which had pipped and I was pretty sure the other was dead as I couldnt hear anything. put hot bags of water in bator under them and did the same in a box for the chicks.
Got home, set up the permanent brooder and start thoroughly checking the chicks out.
One of the hatches after the power outage, has a left eye that it VERY rarely opens and sees basically out of only the right eye, but boy does he move FAST for one eyed! Another doesn't stand much at all and kind of squat shuffles around instead, but if it's startled etc or baing chased by a sibling, it does get up...? Another we though had a foot issue, but it appears to be spreading toes ok now and they're all still just gaining balance. So this concerned me bc I figured the outage had something to do with it. Now that we're here, I cleaned out the bator a bit and checked all my eggs again and heard a light tapping in the one that hasn't pipped yet! Today is day 22 but if it's going to come out I'll gladly wait! The other three were beginning to zip. The most recent one has a protrusion at it's umbilical and still is dragging the yolk around so he is staying in the bator as long as possible so as to avoid more trauma and hopefully let him pull that back. Another is about to pop, and the other is taking a break. All are doing well, some even barreling through the others in the brooder from the food to the other and back. Only time will tell how many of the issues will remain or affect mortality rates, but for all that's gone on, it look like the LEAST I should end up with is 11/15 that made it to hate and 3 of those were my fault :-( Currently there are 8 in the brooder, 1 in the bator and another soon to be out, with another one zipping and one left not doing anything yet.
I do have some pics of the adorable yellow with black spotted chicks but I am thinking I'll wait until the hatch is over and everyone is noce and dry to post them. Hopefully tmrw. We are not sure which one was "miracle" so we renamed the one that hatched during the outage that. No other names yet, except one eye ;-) My mom said power was out for 9 hours total...my chicks and eggs survived 7 and a half of it...considering that, I guess I should be pretty grateful of how my hatch turned out!
Again, thanks for all the thoughts so to be so long winded....it's been a LONG day- I'm kind of glad my bator is almost out of eggs LOL

 

[sangel4you]

there is the one with the umbilical wandering around in there somewhere, but theres also one hatching...

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/hatching1226