Pipd's Peeps!

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Yikes. Rayburn better cool his jets.

What are the jars for?

As for Maizie, she is doing much better! She is still laying down more than the other chickens, but she was out pecking around the grass and scratching at dirt - which is a vast improvement from before as she was just laying down under a Bush as soon as she came out.
I cut back to giving her the supplements once per day instead of twice and have some extra vitamins sprinkled on feed plus probiotics in water.

This evening, I found a tick on one of my muscovy girls. The ticks have been really bad this year. I've found a few on myself even plus some on the dogs.

The jars are heat sinks to help stabilize the incubator temperatures when there are only a few eggs, but in this case they're there to help weigh down the cartons for when chicks start hatching and tumbling around in there. It'll be soon, too!! We have three air breathers this morning, two of the Chocolates and one of the BBS Editing here, we're up to 8 pips now!! 3 Chocolates and 5 BBS! Editing again, up to 6 BBS now!!

Yay, Maizie! I'm so glad she seems to be improving! I think you're right that that cockerel was stressing her out. Glad she can relax and recover now

Yuck on the ticks! They've been pretty bad here, too, the darn things. My niece and nephew keep finding them crawling on themselves when they come inside, and the dog is carrying some in as well and sharing them with the house.

 

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First baby out! Looks like a blue!!

One of the eggs from Gus's pen has pipped now, too, as well as a few more BBS, I've lost count at this point. Sadly, it looks like that first Chocolate to pip has died. I'm really hoping the rest hatch fine

 

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They're popping like popcorn!! Four out and a fifth on the way! The four out all appear to be Blue!

I'm keeping a close eye on a Chocolate egg that has been pipped for most of the day, too. Come on, little one!!

 

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We're sitting at 7 babies this morning! 5 for sure are Blue, one could be a dark Blue or a Black, and the Chocolate finally hatched at about 1am last night, too! Plus there's another Chocolate egg pipped, I can see movement in the air cell of two more Chocolate eggs, both Gus eggs are pipped, and the remaining four BBS eggs are pipped!


I moved the oldest 5 to the EcoGlow so that they weren't sucking the humidity out of their air with their drying fluff, but unfortunately that means it's hard to get pictures of them now. Here's a picture I grabbed of a pretty Blue baby with a marbley face, though, and a baby booty

 

[Crazy Maizie]

Awe. Precious fluffy nuggets.

 

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We are up to 14 babies as of tonight! The 10 BBS Cochins have all hatched, and both Gus eggs, plus the Chocolate from before. Number 14 is also a Chocolate, but she shrink wrapped and I just helped her out about 10 minutes ago, so she's still loudly complaining. One remaining Chocolate egg is pipped and another was moving around in the air cell last I looked this morning. The last two beyond them are still and I didn't see any veining, so I think they're goners. But still, should these last two hatch, that's 16 babies that made it!!

One mass photo shoot coming up tomorrow! For now, I'm absolutely wiped out and headed to bed.

 

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A Chocolate hatched overnight, which surprised me because I didn't even know it had externally pipped! The one with a pip that I mentioned in my last post started to zip and then stopped, so I may have to assist that one as well. I'm giving it a little more time to be sure before I do.

Once that little one is out, that'll put me at 16 babies! Quite a successful hatch overall! I need to take stock of which are Blue and which are Black, but there are 12 of those varieties, 3 Chocolates, and the last one in its egg still should be a Chocolate Cuckoo.

Edit, last one is here with a little bit of help! She is Chocolate Cuckoo!

 

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Here they are in all their glory! So... many... babies!!

It looks like I ended up with 6 for sure silkied Blues:

4 for sure silkied Blacks and one (front and center, in front of the complainer ) who might be a Black or might be a super dark Blue:

Three Chocolates and one Chocolate Cuckoo (the one all the way to the right) :

And one little bitty who I think may have been an oopsie? I know for sure that only four Chocolate eggs hatched, and I know for sure that both the chicks from Gus's pen were pure Black because I banded them when they hatched, so this little one had to have come along with the silkied BBS eggs, but appears to be mixed color or something. I know she's been working on a project involving crossing her Reds to her Blacks or something to that effect, so I wonder if this little one is from that.

These babies were all over the place, so that's all I got for now I will be attempting to do individual pictures of them at some point this weekend and possibly leg banding them so that I know who is who. Sometimes the face markings are enough for me to distinguish them, but there are just so many of them this time around!!

 

[Crazy Maizie]

Sweet fluffers!

 

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Here's all of them individually! I took these yesterday, but forgot to post them In the interest of not bogging down the page, I made a collage of all of them that you can click on to look closer at! The 'G' chicks are Gus's babies, and Black Baby 3 is the one I wasn't sure if it was Blue or Black. I do think that little one is Black now, just by comparison to the other chicks, but we'll know for sure when she starts to feather in. Oh, and I just used the same picture of the mixed color baby because by the time I was through the other 15 I was worn out from wrangling them and trying to get them to pose.