~ Silkie Hatch-a-Long August 2015 (SHIPPED EGGS GONE WRONG!!) ~

[WVduckchick]

Really?? Thank you! That makes me feel better. It's only a five minute trip. So I hope some still hatch. I'll candle tonight to see how much damage has been done. Thanks for the encouragement!

Are you going to bring them back home to hatch?
I'm so hopeful for you. You gotta know the ones that make it will be awesome chicks, after all they have been through!

 

[silkienrescues]

Shipped eggs are hard. And a 5 day trip is even worse. I'm working with my worst eggs yet and they were a 4 day trip. If you ever want any help along the way, send me a pm. I could go over everything with you and go step by step. I'd love to see you get a great hatch. Don't give up!!

I'm so stressed out!! I had the incubator lid off last night and I was candling. I was almost on the last egg and the power went out! I don't have a generator or any backup. So I called my electric company and they told me their was an auto accident that knocked down a pole and that it would be out for several hours. So I panicked. I wrapped each egg, loosely in a paper towel and put them in a styro carton. And drove them and the incubator to my grandma's house that lives only a couple miles away. Of course the power came back on a few hours later. If I would have waited it out, it would have been out all night. Now I have to go back to her house and pick them up. This hatch was just never meant to be! I'm getting a small generator before spring hatches! Is there any hope left for these guys? I drove with them on my lap, very slow...

Ruby

That must have been awful, but dont stress, remember mother hens get off the nest, and I noticed sometimes margaret (my broody) didn't quite cover all the eggs, so some where cooler. All developed further, and 8/9 hatched, only 1 lost and it pipped the underside....the egg itself seems to retain quite a bit of heat, and they are resilient. You have insulated them, and provided your own body heat, I think they will be fine. Its cold where you are but I'm sure they didn't get cold with what you have described. Moving them isn't ideal of course but they aren't at the stage of aircells being gfree to float where ever they like and their blastoderm isn't a higgledy piggleldy mess, all is in place developmentally.

It might be worth mentioning here, our body temp is very close to incubating temp. if that happened again, and your husband isnt the jealous type, put them against your stomach, cover them over well and lie down with a good book. If someone else in the family is warmer skinned than you, and compliant, get them to be broody.
Get a good nights sleep tonight, its lock down soon isn't it?
will be thinking of you

Lea

 

[silkienrescues]

This is scarlet yolkhansen (partridge) who had trouble, and hilary fluff drying off just before we finally got to go to sleep. 2 days old, scarlet is bigger than hilary, someone was saying bad aircells make the chick grow bigger, could be why your chicks are stuck.

 

[silkienrescues]

He's so cute!

I love the guitar idea!!!

He will look great in white jacket and trousers with sequins!

 

[RubyNala97]

They wont sit still, but here are a couple photos... Can you see the naked neck? : )

Is the nn, the first one?? So completely adorable!

Yes, looks like porcelain! Beautiful!!

That's what I'm hoping for. I've seen some gorgeous paints and I'll not stop until I have one!

Me too! I'm dying for paints now. But I have a breeder all lined up for paints. She's on BYC and I've spoken to other members who have had great hatches with her shipped eggs! These are my next purchase!
http://m.ebay.com/itm/12-Bearded-Pa...3D161805552012&_trksid=p2056116.c100408.m2460

@darkbluespace
I love the Show Girls, but husband said they look too "weird". He also said the same about Frizzles. He doesn't know that there were a couple of each in the pens I got the eggs from. If they hatch I'm just going to be like "Wow! How did THAT get in there?"

Elvis... I might have to make a tiny guitar for him...

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I LOVE him!!!

Yes its not nice seeing upsetting photos without a warning. Scarlet i found because she had broken the inner membrane and I saw the fluid. I'm trying to think how I will set my guidelines for intervening, and deepbluespace I totally respect your experience, but I would have to go further looking, because all the others dead would be too much for me not to search more, as it would look like a certain death otherwise.
Ruby was the yolk absorbed?
I'm expecting with the veins receded the yolk was absorbed, but not having breathed I would not be surprised to see the umbilicus still open though and for the lungs not to be fully functioning. I'm a midwife and looking at what happens to circulation in babies with their first breaths. So the important thing would be get air to the chick, then keep it moist and warm, leave for a few hours or until it begins being active itself. This is my first thoughts want to do more research, and hope not to have to use any of this. the important start point is identifying the hatch start point....very hard for you Ruby when not 1 pipped externally, and with the delay possible from the cooling.
No one else is there with us when we make decisions, but the more I can understand the process the better i think. studying those  6 common malposition pics on assisted hatching might be helpful.

I did not know you were a midwife! I've used midwives for all my pregnancies. The first was a homebirth attempt! That is wonderful! My dream career is to be a lactation consultant! Anyway, see you are comfortable with blood, fluid, life, death...etc. I am very uncomfortable going into an egg that has not internally pipped. My first batch of eggs, they were shipped, I only had one egg left over that didn't hatch. 2 days after the hatch I wanted to do my first eggtopsie. So I opened the egg, I opened the whole air cell and the chick was alive! I thought "I have to get it out of the membrane...it's going to die." I didn't know what to look for. The membrane had heavy veins and I just cut it open, blood everywhere, and the chick died. Perfect chick, yoke absorbed but horrible shape air cell. I cried the whole entire night and vowed never to open a membrane again. But as I hatched more and learned more I became comfortable with eggtopsies, and some assisting. But it's really the chicks that are still under the membrane that get me. I get nervous. My stomach gets butterflies. My hands get shaky. I think with more experience (hands-on) this will get easier. Next year my chickens will be laying there own eggs and I can hatch them whenever I want. It's going to take lots more reading and speaking to people with experience and then hands on experience for me to get comfortable. I don't know if that chick had the yoke absorbed. I only took his head out and that was it. It was a beautiful chick. Looked almost alive. I read an article about hatching condor eggs. And if the baby does not pip internally, and the beak is not directly under the air cell, they use a special machine with radio-waves to locate where the beak in under the shell. Then they use a drill and drill a whole into the shell directly over the beak. That's the only way they have had success. Even then they said very risky. As the baby needs to start breathing oxygen in order for its body to trigger certain responses for it to be healthy. This article said it all better then I am but you get the drift. Many people won't even attempt to help a chick that does not internally pip. It's great to talk to you and darkbluespace and pick your brains!

 

[darkbluespace]

I was wrried about offending you by commenting as i did, and of course absolutely didnt intend that. Thank you for adding more knowledge to this problem area. Can well see how a drying yolk is a problem. Could be being exposed too much too quick could be too much for the air sacks in the lungs to open and allow surfactant to be produced enough to stop them sticking to themselves as they breath out.

Now there is a bigger problem...how do you tell your husband we need to move to a farm so as to keep hatching?

Not offended

I was just clarifying my reasoning. If you have a different experience that works for you I am very open to hearing that. I do try to speak from my experience and think others can have their experiences so I didn't intend to come off like a know it all. I guess I have come to a place where I have accepted that not every chick can be saved, though I put a good amount of effort into trying, I am finding that trying less can be better sometimes. I have a special place in my heart for all the little birds I incubate that don't make it in this world.

I think it is cool that you are a midwife. I had a home birth with my one and only son 10 yrs ago... wouldn't do it any other way! Interesting the few of us are all alternative that way.

As for moving to a farm... start planting seeds... Wouldn't it be so nice to live in the country?.. all that fresh air... all that space... Then he won't be shocked when you tell him you want to really do it!

 

[GitaBooks]

Awesome!!

The only reason I polled "not my favorite" is because I have other breeds I think I like more (I have trouble choosing favorites also). Silkies are so sweet, pretty, soft, unique, and wonderful mommas and poppas, though they are more prone to predation and bullying. I have a silkie egg under my silkie momma. She also has some standard eggs under her. In a few days I'm also getting a silkie chick, along with some other bantams, from the hatchery!

I look forward to hearing about your hatch and I'll keep you up-to-date on mine!

 

[Griffin Nest]

Awesome! So exciting!

 

[Griffin Nest]

Eggs are coming tomorrow!

 

[GitaBooks]

Awesome!!

My chick is coming tomorrow also!!