My chick hatched....then died.
I have no other activity going on. Now we have a choice to make. Start over, or buy some day old chicks. Very disappointing.
That's very sad, I'm sorry to hear that. You might look locally for day old chicks, there are lots of contacts here in the forums. I can tell you what my last couple of days has been like. Of the thirteen eggs that made it to lockdown, two managed to hatch by the morning of day 22 (yesterday). A third one pipped at the wrong end of the shell and I didn't have much hope for him. I sent messages out to a few folks on the NH chicken swaps thread, because I am working this weekend and can't actually make it to the scheduled swaps. I wound up driving over to nhnanna's house yesterday and picking up six little peepers that are all a week old or less. I was concerned that my two little guys would grow up lonely, I like chicks to be in a crowd, I think it makes them feel safer. Then last night I candled all the rest of the eggs in the incubator and listened to them with a stethoscope and determined that some of them were still alive in there. So I stepped in and assisted. I peeled away the air cell end of the egg and broke the inner membrane for any egg that had managed to pip internally. I also assisted the backwards pipper. I managed to free 5 more chicks from their shells, though two of them are extremely exhausted and may not make it. I know people say you shouldn't assist chicks to hatch, that you should let nature take its course. But all of my little chicks seemed shrink-wrapped, and I feel like it's my own fault for trying the dry incubation method. It was a disaster as far as I'm concerned, 2 out of 13 if I hadn't assisted, and 7 out of 13 with assistance, if they all survive. So in the end, with the six I got from nhnanna, I may still end up with 13 chicks. But it's been pretty sad, I never like to see chicks die late in the shell. In all my previous hatches, if they make it to lockdown they have a pretty good chance of hatching. There's usually one or two that don't make it, but I still get at least 90% hatch out of ones that make it to lockdown (if you count from the number of eggs that I actually set, I get more like 50%, but I cull out the ones that aren't developing long before lockdown, they are usually just infertile).
Anyway, I hope you can find some chicks! One other option you might like to know about is the mypetchicken 15-layer special. If you go to
http://www.mypetchicken.com/catalog/Day-Old-Baby-Chicks-c36.aspx and look close to the top of the page, there's a drop down menu that says "Filter by available date". If you pick 7-30-12, it'll give you a short list of anything still available from this weekend's hatch, which would ship out Monday morning. Among the choices is the brown egg layer 15 pack, which costs $40 and ships for free. mypetchicken is in Connecticut, I've ordered from them before and been pleased with their chicks. I like that they are here in New England so the chicks are never in transit for long. You could order before Monday and have chicks by this Tuesday or Wednesday. I almost ordered this myself to get some friends for my little chicks, but then nhnanna had some breeds I sounded like I'd be interested in so I went that route instead.
Good luck with whatever you decide to do!
