Simulated Natural Nest Incubation~Experiment #1 So it begins....

[AmericanMom]

Your poor mother... Give her a big ol hug from the crowd here...

 

[Cowpoke]

Hi Bee,

Unfortunate for Hootie. But accidents do happen. You nor Mom are most likely not feeling very chirpy right now about it. I feel for ya'll both!

Good to hear on your starting date! Excited and looking forward to this endeavor!!!

 

[Beekissed]

Your poor mother... Give her a big ol hug from the crowd here...

Thank you....it made her cry and my tough old ma don't cry for much. She was having a bad day anyway, missing my dad (he has ALZ and is in a facility), and then she did that...and she hardly ever bothers anything in the coop and rarely even gathers the eggs...it sort of just happened outside of rhyme or reason...something she never would have done, so I know it was supposed to happen that way.

Chances are he would have died anyway just from being smaller, weaker and less fit than his brooder mates.

 

[Beekissed]

Hi Bee,

Unfortunate for Hootie. But accidents do happen. You nor Mom are most likely not feeling very chirpy right now about it. I feel for ya'll both!

Good to hear on your starting date! Excited and looking forward to this endeavor!!!

Yeah...it was a bad day anyway. The reason she was gathering eggs for me was that my back had went out and I was down for the count, so she thought she would help me. Freak accident due to a string of events that never really happen much here.

Thank you for the encouraging words....from all of you....it means so much to me. I WILL repeat this experiment and will monitor temps more closely and will increase humidity much, much more near the end of the hatch by wetting down the soils more. I was misting the pad but the heat generated there kept burning off the misting, so I think wetting the soils better may be more effective.

 

[LindaB220]

Update and it's gonna make you all sad....Hootie met with an unfortunate accident and died. My ol' Ma went up to gather eggs and didn't understand my water nipple setup underneath the bucket and thought I was using a side cup nipple, so she lowered the bucket onto the surface of the brooder floor so they could reach the side cup nipple. Said she could hear Hootie peeping but could not see him amongst the other chicks running around and so thought he was under the brooder....he wasn't. He was directly under the water bucket and she hadn't seen him....she set the water bucket right on top of him. It wasn't real heavy and he wasn't smashed too much but I think the combination of the weight and the cold bucket on his little body was too much.

When she came back from the coop and said she couldn't see the little guy, I immediately got my shoes on and went to check but it was too late...he was still warm but dead all the same.

And so life goes...it's a funny ol' life, isn't it?

I don't know why she would bother with the water bucket without asking me but she was just trying to make sure those chicks had water...like a fussy old Mama will do..so I don't blame her for it. It's just one of those "wrong place at the wrong time" things for poor Hootie.

For the rest of the chicks, they love the brooder and are eating and drinking, running around and also making use of the warm up place. I'll go up before dark and make sure they are all under the brooder before night falls...it's supposed to get down into the twenties again tonight and this will be a true test of this heating pad brooder.

I'll set that new nest on 3/26 to have a hatch date by Good Friday 4/18, I'm thinking.

God love you. I'm so sorry. And sorry for your Mama. I know she feels wretched. Correct, keep going. The next one will have more of the kinks out of it.

 

[AmericanMom]

Thank you....it made her cry and my tough old ma don't cry for much. She was having a bad day anyway, missing my dad (he has ALZ and is in a facility), and then she did that...and she hardly ever bothers anything in the coop and rarely even gathers the eggs...it sort of just happened outside of rhyme or reason...something she never would have done, so I know it was supposed to happen that way.

Chances are he would have died anyway just from being smaller, weaker and less fit than his brooder mates.

Well Lord bless her for her kind heart and effort to help you.

 

[Wishing4Wings]

Yeah...it was a bad day anyway. The reason she was gathering eggs for me was that my back had went out and I was down for the count, so she thought she would help me. Freak accident due to a string of events that never really happen much here.

Thank you for the encouraging words....from all of you....it means so much to me. I WILL repeat this experiment and will monitor temps more closely and will increase humidity much, much more near the end of the hatch by wetting down the soils more. I was misting the pad but the heat generated there kept burning off the misting, so I think wetting the soils better may be more effective.

So sad for you and your mom, and Hootie of course. Makes me more grateful for those nothing new, nothing happening days and to count your blessings, even on the boring uneventful days.

Hope your back feels better soon. I feel your pain. Literally.

 

[fisherlady]

Bee, so sorry about the unfortunate accident... I know in my heart that things happen for a reason, so I guess we just take it on faith that the reason is a good one.... even if it is so hard to understand at the time.
I have learned an incredible amount through your hatching project and you hopefully understand just how important the effort to learn and to teach is for all of us who have followed your effort as we ourselves are trying to continue learning our way back to a self sufficient life. The lessons certainly aren't always easy, and some are downright difficult, but they all provide us another step toward our goal. Your efforts through this thread have provided a lot of folks with a lot of steps!
I look forward to your next steps and next nest so we can all continue to learn...

 

[Beekissed]

Thank you!

I'm learning so much too and I'm not too surprised to learn just how much I don't know. I know how much I need to learn and how much I love to learn, so these little experiments are my way of garnering the intellect of a large cross section of the BYC populace and I am most grateful for all of those who participate and help me learn. I so needed the help.

The meat chicks are doing fine, though half of them didn't find their way back to the fake broody mama and I even found two of them under the nipple bucket space, huddled into that corner. All were scooped and stuffed under the mama and they stayed....slowly the peeping died down as they were warmed by the pad and by each other. More hay was deposited on top and around the fake mama as tonight is supposed to be really cold and tomorrow we are supposed to get some snow.

I'm going to apply an old heating pad with a 2 hr shutoff to the fermented feed trough for each feeding to see if it can keep the feed a little warmer as they partake of it.


Here's a question for all you experienced hatchers....how do you choose what eggs to hatch? Do you go for the biggest ones, the slender, pointier ones or the fat, more rounded ones? All three of the eggs that made it to producing a chick in that last nest were the smaller eggs, more slender, oval in shape than larger and more rounded~but there were enormous chicks in them and maybe they were too big for their shells and did not have room for pecking out? They were jam packed in there.

What type of egg do you have the most success in hatching?

 

[aart]

I've had to be shoving the chicks under the heat pad every night...they sit on it, and under it, on and off all day...but it starts getting dark and they' re all huddled in a corner peeping <rollseyes>