ok, i'm back! i've been gone from BYC most of today cuz i had 3 hatch out of 8 eggs. i do believe the others will not hatch. none of the remaining 5 had pipped, so i took each one out, one by one and held it up to my ear and tapped gently with my fingernail....i heard no peeping and no movement. i did this to each one. all 5 were the same...nothing. but i put them back in the bator anyway and i'm gonna give them till saturday to hatch (due date was today and lastnight)......if nobody comes out by then, i'll just throw them away. what's weird is when i candled before lockdown, all 8 eggs had movement in them. i wonder what caused 5 to die? anyway, onto better things....out of my 8 showgirl eggs, 2 silkies hatched, and one showgirl! i'll have to get my hubby to help me post pics later....he's playing x-box now.....but one chick took 23 hours from the time he pipped to actually hatch. the other 2 were strong and fast! the one that took so long laid around forever and was struggling to get up, but couldn't. i noticed no other eggs had pipped at that time, so i opened the bator to help, and sure enough, his body was so hardened with "egg sludge" that he was plastered down onto the towel i put in the bator. then, not only that, his wing was also plastered to his body. so i wrapped him in a warm wet washcloth which did not help. so i put his body under a warm stream of water. and i was very gentle cuz he also had a membrane still attached to his bottom....i did NOT pull on this membrane. but i was able to free his wing from being plastered to him....and i thought he would fuss up a storm during all this, but he was good, just gently peeping. he's the smallest of the 3 and is doing quite well now. he's a silkie with no vaulted skull and i think he'll be partridge colored. i also have a beautiful silkie with a vaulted skull that looks buff colored in some places, and whitish on his back. then, my showgirl is doing great! he has a chipmunk pattern on his back. will he be partridge colored? i can't figure what other color he could be with that marking. and the little one who was stuck, he kinda has that pattern too, but it's harder to tell on him cuz he's still not very fluffy. (hubby just said he'd help me post a pic tomorrow. i'm totally computer illiterate!) anyway, my brooder is so big, i just sit in there with the 3 of them. and i showed them their water and they're all drinking, sleeping, and peeping. and they love to sit in my hand. i wonder if i should feed them tomorrow afternoon? i know they don't need food YET.
