Pea Eggs Scheduled to Hatch?

[new 2 pfowl]

Wow!
They look wonderful!
Thanks for sharing the pictures.

 

[Hatcher-mama]

I have my very first hatch due June 28th. My very first peafowl, hopeful. I am trying to learn everything I can about peafowl.. I noticed Hatcher-MaMa wrote about the peachick having splayed leg. Can I asked what this is? How do you correct it with yarn. One of you said you felt like a human waiting on a baby. You hit it on the nail. I'm just so anxious.

Lil Zoo, I hasd 2 with splayed leg! I tied soft yarn around each knee joint toallow approxiamately 1 1/2 inches between the legs. I was able to do the first one right away and it had corrected by morning. The second wouldn't cooperate so I played wait-and-see, but after 24 hours of it not being able to stand, I recruited help and got the yarn on there. He was able to stand right away and it fully corrected in less than a day!. I did use Rubbermaid shelf liner (kind of netted rubber) in the brooder, but it alone was not enough. If you need better visuals, I just typed in "correcting splayed legs" on this site and found lots of helpful posts with pics. Good luck!!! I was a nervous wreck for my first peachick hatch, after reading too much about what can go wrong--then I had a 100% hatch!

 

[kuntrygirl]

Well, I have been on a rollercoaster ride over the last week with this hatch. I had a terrible hatch but I am happy for what has hatched. However, this is my very first time trying to hatch pea eggs in the incubator. The 5 pea eggs were scheduled to hatch on Saturday. I had 1 baby that began zipping a few days early. I noticed the "point of zip" looked VERY dry. It didn't look good at all. I was very nervous about the pea not being able to get out of the egg but I let nature takes it course and let things happen. 24 hours had passed and the baby was still trying to get out. I checked the humidity and I thought that the humidity was 20, so I panicked and opened the incubator and put in more water. I looked at the hyrdometer and it read 60!!! I misread the hydrometer. It was actually 40 instead of 20 and it spiked to 60. I could have kicked myself. So, after that, still no baby. A fellow BYC'er and friend and experienced hatcher helped me so much through this process and gave me some great advice on what to do. I tried to save the baby but it was too late. After more than 48 hours of trying to break out of the shell, the pea wasn't strong enough to make it out. It died in the shell. I opened up the shell and it was full formed. I was so sad after that.

So, on Friday, I noticed another egg that was zipping. I had another baby trying to break out. I noticed AGAIN that the area where it was breaking the shell was again VERY DRY. I was soooooooo nervous because I thought the same thing was happening. Temp, humidity and vent was perfect but the area looked very dry. I went to bed and woke up Saturday morning to a baby pea. I was so happy to see that it was able to get out with no problem. There were 2 problems with his baby. Problem #1- There was membrane that had dried on the right side of it's face covering it's eye. I went to the bathroom, turned on the hot shower so that I could bring it in a warm and humid room. The house was too cold. I removed it from the bator and ran in the bathroom . I had my tweezers ready. I carefully removed the dry membrane from it's face . It was VERY VERY VERY dry and it was difficult to remove but I did it. Does anyone know what could have caused the point (hole) of zip to be too dry causing difficulty for pea #1 to break out and the dry membrane on the face of pea #2?

The other problem that I had and it was my fault was that it's little foot was a little tangled on a loose thread from the towel that I had placed on the slippery tray. I should have used a paper towel instead but I didn't. So I will have to try to put something on it's foot to straighten out. I took it out of the incubator on last night and it is eating and drinking. It went to the food and water immediately. I can tell that it's little foot is giving it a little problem but it is moving and walking around ok. It is chirping away for company. I put the other pea that hatched a couple weeks ago in with the new baby. It looked at it and flew out of the brooder. I don't know what that was all about.

So the final hatch for this round (5 pea eggs) was 1 pea died in the shell, 1 hatched, 2 eggs were fertile but failed to fully form in the shell and 1 egg was not fertile.

I placed 4 fresh pea eggs under a broody chicken hen and I have picked 3 pea eggs this weekend. I will remove the 4 eggs from under the hen and place those eggs along with the other 3 pea eggs and put all of them in the bator with some turkey eggs and guinea eggs. Soooooooooooo, anyone setting any pea eggs today?

I read somewhere in another pea forum that a person stands to have an excellent hatch rate if they allow a broody hen to incubate pea eggs for 10 - 14 eggs and then place the eggs in the incubator. I may try this next go round . As long as the girls are laying, I will continue to hatch. I guess practice makes perfect.

Thanks to Terri who walked me through all of this and was there for the emergencies. She was my on-call life line and support for these past few days. Thanks TERRI !!!

Here are some pics of the baby that hatched on Saturday.

 

[TerriLaChicks]

It's adorable & glad I was able to help!

 

[zazouse]

Aww they are beautiful, thanks for the pic fix. now i can bet back on the tractor and get to work.

 

[zazouse]

Here is a group shot of all the chicks I've been able to keep so far,everyone that shows up manages to snag a few,,and two more "snaggers" are showing up this week for Bronze and Purples,,

Where did all them white ones come from? i thought you didn't have white.
Boy that one white in the from is a leggy baby unless it is just looks like that because of the angle it is taken.

Thank you for the pic-fix, much need this morning.

 

[kuntrygirl]

Here is a group shot of all the chicks I've been able to keep so far,everyone that shows up manages to snag a few,,and two more "snaggers" are showing up this week for Bronze and Purples,,

Where did all them white ones come from? i thought you didn't have white.
Boy that one white in the from is a leggy baby unless it is just looks like that because of the angle it is taken.

 Thank you for the pic-fix, much need this morning.

Ditto. Adorable!!!

VERY leggy. A runway model legs.

 

[frenchblackcopper]

Zazouse,,the "leggy" one in front was 1 of 2 that was my first hatched (May20th),the dynamic duo,,both Opal B/S,,all my Midnights are B/S,,and my purple pen also has a Purple B/S silver pied male bought from Brad Legg this spring ,,only colored birds I have is bronze and the two pieds that recently hatched.I did the LED inspection late last night,and my first Charcoal egg has movement and is due tomorrow,,just got word too that my dark pied charcoal w/e Peacock is also split to white,,,I now have another fresh bottle of Merlot chilling for this peachicks pip and hatch,,and I hope it turns out to be a male,,

 

[frenchblackcopper]

Kutrygirl,the membrane drying on the peachick is caused by taking forever to get out after pipping.And even if it hatched quickly sometimes a piece of membrane will stick to the down feathers and dry attached to them,,

 

[zazouse]

Zazouse,,the "leggy" one in front was 1 of 2 that was my first hatched (May20th),the dynamic duo,,both Opal B/S,,all my Midnights are B/S,,and my purple pen also has a Purple B/S silver pied male bought from Brad Legg this spring ,,only colored birds I have is bronze and the two pieds that recently hatched.I did the LED inspection late last night,and my first Charcoal egg has movement and is due tomorrow,,just got word too that my dark pied charcoal w/e Peacock is also split to white,,,I now have another fresh bottle of Merlot chilling for this peachicks pip and hatch,,and I hope it turns out to be a male,,

WOW you drink a whole bottle of Merlot for one chick? dang i would not be able to stand and would proble put the chick somewhere and forget where when i woke up the next morning.