Well it was a long weekend for sure! A lot of waiting and I kept walking to the bator then stopping myself and walking away!
The 1 surviving silkie chick was supposed to hatch on friday. Saturday night I could still not hear any cheeping so I removed the egg without tiping it and held it in a pretty wet papertowel to keep from shrink wrapping. Still no internal pip but I saw a movment so I knew it was still alive. Bad thing was though its air cell took up pretty close to half of the egg. If you know silkies u know how small their eggs are already, now we are talking half that size! I didn't even think that once it internaly piped it would have enough leverage to externally pip the hard shell. But I waited and sure enough sunday night about midnight I heard the first peeps! I left it alone and was going to just wait and see what happened but then it changed.
This afternoon while in my room I started hear peeps of distress from the egg and it had not zipped at all yet. I opened the bator finally to help or at leased see if I could tell what was wrong? I used a dull fat needle to open the shell a bit and the membrain was dry and white, so I tore it a lil bit and that was when I noticed the chick was smeared with blood. I opened the egg carefully watching as I went and there was no blood in the membrain but I figured out the chick mus have turned in the egg the wrong way and it tore its cord causeing pretty bad bleeding. It ripped off right at its skin. I wrapped it in a damp warm rag and held pressure on the spot for a while and the bleeding slowed almost to a stop after a while. I put it back in the bator and it just layed on the warm rag inside for a long time.
After a couple hours of rest I took it out again and the bleeding had fully stopped so I carefully cleaned it up most of the way and dried it to a fluff. It is now resting under a broody I brought into my laundry room to give the last OEG chick to. They are all bonding good and though these are her first chicks she is doing pretty good. I will keep em inside and watch em for probly a week or so to be sure they are all doing great and chicks are strong then I will move em out to the coop with the rest of the flock. This hen is roos favorite so she shouldn't have to much trouble reasserting herself as he always protects and guards her.
Just had to share. So this lil thing was 3 days late but after it went through I don't know how it survived at all! And heres the real shocker!!! I have 2 silkie roos(1 white, 1 splash) and 3 possible hens(2 white, 1 blue)!
So I don't know where it came from but this lil chick has complete chipmonk markings of a light partridge!!!
but on the flip side I have 9 Pekins and a Silkie hatch and are in my new brooder which my boyfriend built me for Valentines day!!!
