Poor baby

[Duker17]

I just had a jersy giant hatch: 2 days late, with a crossed beak, no eyes, and it did not absorb all of the yolk. This will be the first time I've had to cull a baby directly out of the incubator, although I suppose it is easier with all of the visible defects. I just feel so bad for the poor thing.

This whole hatch has not went as well as normal. These were shipped eggs, I ordered 12 and received 18. I ended up with 4 unfertilized, 1 died really early on, 2 that pipped and started to zip but then quit on me, 8 that hatched on their own, but one of those died this morning for no obvious reason, and now this one. I know that 9 of 18 eggs what should be expeceted from shipped eggs, it's just a really low hatch rate compared to what I'm used to, especially when 2 of those 9 don't make it. What a bummer...

 

[Barrdwing]

I raised an eyeless chick; she hatched out under a hen, and I'm still not sure what caused her condition. She was a real challenge at first but has done well. But ouch, a crossed beak and incomplete yolk absorption: that's a triple whammy all right, and I don't see a good alternative to culling either. Sorry that this hatch has not gone as planned!

It's so frustrating when that happens.

 

[Denninmi]

Yes, sorry about that, it is hard. Kind of amazing it was even able to hatch like that. Poor little thing.

I agree with you about shipped eggs, last year I did a number of hatches all with shipped eggs. The success rate was between 25% and 88%, but averaged about 50%. I also had a number of babies with various issues, floppy upside down chicks, splayed legs, etc.

This year, I'm hatching almost all my own eggs, except for some Pilgrim goose eggs (which were REALLY bad, 3 out of 18 hatched and lived). Night and day difference. Not only is the hatch rate far, far better, in fact so far I'm 100% on my turkey eggs for the good ones that went in (another story, hen was sitting on them a while but doing a bad job, some were rotten when I took them from her), BUT the chicks are all healthy, none of the issues I had last year.