- Jan 24, 2014
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Hi all,
We tried out our new incubator, never incubated before. Hatch Day was yesterday. This little one was 'born' around lunch time today (it's now 8.30pm where we are). It had huge issues getting out of it's shell. It made very little progress over 24 hours and the membrane that was exposed dried out and became a tan/yellow colour. In the end I intervened (following advice and instructions from this forum) and wet the membrane carefully and pulled back just a little of the outer membrane (shell). Until chick could get it's beak out. I put it back in the incubator at this point, left it for 3 hours, checked on it and it had managed the rest of the unzip/hatch on it's own.
Now I see why it probably had issues hatching. It's got definite spraddle legs. Cannot stand or walk and keeps falling flat on it's face when it tries to do so.
After lots of reading on here and lots of googling. We have used a bandaid to tape it's legs. Like so;
Is this correct? Did we do it right?
We are first timers and it took us ages and 2 goes to get it looking like the photo.
Now to the curled toes, which are on both feet and are pretty bad. Again we've read extensively on here, google, etc. We tried just making a cardboard splint but found it really hard to position the toes properly. So we found this method:
Hubby has since trimmed the cardboard back. Does this look ok? Does it need any changes?
It can sit up for the first time now, hasn't attempted walking or standing - its very tired. It's still in the incubator, I haven't moved it to the brooder yet.
How often do I need to change the splints?
Any help, pointers, tips would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
We tried out our new incubator, never incubated before. Hatch Day was yesterday. This little one was 'born' around lunch time today (it's now 8.30pm where we are). It had huge issues getting out of it's shell. It made very little progress over 24 hours and the membrane that was exposed dried out and became a tan/yellow colour. In the end I intervened (following advice and instructions from this forum) and wet the membrane carefully and pulled back just a little of the outer membrane (shell). Until chick could get it's beak out. I put it back in the incubator at this point, left it for 3 hours, checked on it and it had managed the rest of the unzip/hatch on it's own.
Now I see why it probably had issues hatching. It's got definite spraddle legs. Cannot stand or walk and keeps falling flat on it's face when it tries to do so.
After lots of reading on here and lots of googling. We have used a bandaid to tape it's legs. Like so;
Is this correct? Did we do it right?
We are first timers and it took us ages and 2 goes to get it looking like the photo.
Now to the curled toes, which are on both feet and are pretty bad. Again we've read extensively on here, google, etc. We tried just making a cardboard splint but found it really hard to position the toes properly. So we found this method:
Hubby has since trimmed the cardboard back. Does this look ok? Does it need any changes?
It can sit up for the first time now, hasn't attempted walking or standing - its very tired. It's still in the incubator, I haven't moved it to the brooder yet.
How often do I need to change the splints?
Any help, pointers, tips would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
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