She said/He said Who's right? Who's wrong? No one!

[WVduckchick]

She said when it busted open it had chunks in it. I had one that got bacteria in it that looked scrambled with chunks, but never seen one like that. It almost looks like membranes shrank around it, but it's probably the veins.

Hopefully someone who has done more eggtopsies will see it. I'm curious to know what caused it. I guess some type of bacteria is possible.

 

[FridayYet]

It looks almost like it has abnormal cell growth, like the yolk sac was seeded with tumors. Unfortunately my knowledge of human pathophysiology is much greater than chicken path, so I'll defer to those with more experience.

 

[RubyNala97]

Finally managing to get some pics up!

They are so beautiful! I love how clean your nest boxes are!!

Update: Final polish just hatched! Yeah!! Still nothing on the other eggs, including Blobby, so I figure I'm done, but I will leave them in till tomorrow. (just starting day 23 in about an hour)

Congrats on the hatch!! On what day will you shut down? And when are you incubating again? Lol

 

[MunsterChicks]

Is a fisher cat what we call a weasel? I have a friend that didn't bury his wire. One got in and killed 18/20 eight week old pullets. Just left them scattered all around the pen. He used to make fun of me for overbuilding my pens...

I saw Amy posted a pic. Do a YouTube search of the noise they make. It's disturbing, when I first moved to the woods hubby laughed at me because I almost peed myself when I first heard them.

This is great to hear! Thank you for replying! That is my plan also. My neighbor does the same also. That's how I decided to get chickens. I would see his out all day and go over to watch them. Then decided why not! We live on the end of a dirt road so there is no one else behind me. I let mine out now but just for a little while at a time. I still haven't put together their coop. I bought one and it just needs to be put together. Already thinking about the next one I will make!

I live at the end of a dirt road too LOL. It used
to be all dirt, but they paved half of it,
and then just stopped haha. You can totally build a coop! It was just cheaper for us to figure it out vs. buying one, plus my hubby is handy and I figured it couldn't be that hard.

Update: Final polish just hatched! Yeah!! Still nothing on the other eggs, including Blobby, so I figure I'm done, but I will leave them in till tomorrow. (just starting day 23 in about an hour)

Yay! I'm going to pull mine out. I want to do eggtopsies tonight, but my hubby doesn't want too.

 

[WalnutHill]

So I was just thinking about how to go about figuring what age I should be processing my project roos, as it affects how many will end up in the run at one time after hatch and brooding.

My thought was to take a few at 10 weeks, a few at 12, and a few more at 14 weeks. My calcs say the bigger the bird, the higher the project margin, but of course at some point there's a diminishing return on quality of meat.

WalnutHill, you've done this for your breed...how did you think it out?

Non hybrid (not Cornish cross) large fowl will take about 16 weeks to reach peak balance of meat:skeleton. But depending on your cross, they may never flesh out heavily. I don't know anything about Marans, but I know my BrahmaCaunas grow large and fast but not as fast as Cornish x.

 

[WalnutHill]

Ok, so I have been helping someone in pm and she did an eggtopsy today that I want you guys to look at and tell me what is going on with the yolk. I have never seen a yolk look like this. She took the pics at the time of eggtospy so it wasn't exposed to the air and allowed to dry out

Graphic pics in spoiler:

I have seen this when temps were too high for too long, but not to a quite fatal level, and the yolk "cooked". The chick/poult cannot absorb this.

That was my 108F day where I named the LG Easy Bake.

 

[WalnutHill]

BYC acting weird...

 

[MunsterChicks]

I eggtopsies my last three. Look shrink wrapped to me, and one looked shrink wrapped but had a lot of fluid inside its sac. Poor babies

If my humidity was too low during incubation, I would think a lot more would be shrink wrapped. Maybe they just quit? I don't know, they never internally pipped either.

 

[WalnutHill]

More food pics for your enjoyment. I am prepping for the extended family to come for Father's Day, so I am making a variety of sausages to grill up.

Done - Venison Cheddar Jalapeno smoked sausage
Done - Chicken with sun dried tomato and basil
In progress - smoked kielbasa. Rounds are made and preparing for smoking tomorrow morning.
To do - Bratwurst, and maybe some Italian Sausage. Depends on how much pork I feel like chopping up.

Plus a trip to the meat market downtown yielded the usual result...a whole bunch of things I didn't plan to get, but looked too good to pass up.

 

[lazy gardener]

Yes if I see no sign of an internal pip then I will be cracking it open, I remember being about 5 and stood right next to the vet doing an autopsy on a sheep and these things still fascinate me. (Mainly living creatures but death is all a part of pets)
My OH is out to dinner without me so I can spend my evening uninterrupted in chicken research and chocolate snacks!

Is a fisher cat what we call a weasel? I have a friend that didn't bury his wire. One got in and killed 18/20 eight week old pullets. Just left them scattered all around the pen. He used to make fun of me for overbuilding my pens...

Same family, vicious animals, both weasel and fisher. kill just for the fun of it. weasels can squeeze through a hole the size of a quarter. That's why such a strong recommendation for hdw. cloth.

If you can't enjoy watching a baby chick for an hour, you can't like ice cream, you can't taste a good steak, you can't feel the warmth of a sun shower, or smell the freshness of just cleaned sheets. And for every additional hour you enjoy watching baby chicks, all those other things get better...;-]

Have you ever noticed that going out to check on the flock can eat up an entire morning????

Pulled the paper towels out of the center tray of the brooder, the 3 Stooges can eat food or wood, I no longer care. I may well be developing a breed that can exist on wood chips, for all I know. They left the tray with the food on paper towels and went into an adjoining one and scraped away the big chips so they could peck at tiny wood chips...sigh. If they poop, they'll survive...but seeing them peck at their poop on the paper towels was getting too discouraging.

And like my temperature misconceptions with the bator, trying to maintain a reasonable temperature in the brooder has been challenging. I woke up this morning to the temp being 83.5F...I lowered the IR lamp, brought it to 104F...yikes! Raised it again, got it to like 95F (perfect) but as the sun goes down, so too does the brooder temp. Sigh...anyone know a temperature sensitive motor that can pull the IR lamp closer to the ground as the temp drops? never mind...

I love my MHP. Will never go back to a light again, unless brooding more than 30 chicks at a time.

It looks almost like it has abnormal cell growth, like the yolk sac was seeded with tumors. Unfortunately my knowledge of human pathophysiology is much greater than chicken path, so I'll defer to those with more experience.

I agree. That was my first thought.