Thought I'd posted on here before but perhaps not. Regardless, I'm on the East Coast in Monmouth County, NJ. We adopted 11 Golden Comets earlier this year from my inlaws who were leaving for a 3 month trip and then added another 11 Red Stars for our neighbor to our flock. Not long after, we took on a 1 year old Phoenix hybrid roo whom I loved more than anything. He was such a good boy. Sadly, we had a deluge of rain these past weeks and some high temps and suddenly got hit with what we suspect was a coccidiosis outbreak. We lost our roo first but had no clue what happened. He seemed fine the day before and the next morning, lying in his coop. No predators had access and the hens were fine for over a week until we lost a few within a 24 hour period and realized what was going on. Meds wouldn't arrive for 2 days so I laced all of their water with oregano oil, colloidal silver, GSE, and ACV. I also laced their strawberries and frozen blueberries with GSE. After that, we didn't lose any more fluff-butts. But still, I was heartbroken. So now we're down to 19 fluffers. My inlaws will probably take back 6 of their girls and we're adopting 2 roos to replace my beloved Elliott. Eli (who looks very similar to him) can be seen in my avatar <3 He's a silver Braekel. His buddy is Jasper, a black copper maran. I know there are no guarantees that they'll always get along but right now, they're pretty tight and sleep all cuddled up together with Eli trying to get under Jasper's wing <3 And with a flock of 20 hens, I'm hoping there's enough estrogen to go around and keep them so busy, they don't have time to quarrel. Anyway, I'm the crazy girl who had eggs incubating in her shirt a while back. I lost a couple around the 10 to 11 day mark. One I accidentally dropped and the other was a double yolker. I replaced them and had a similar experience the 2nd time around only this time, the one single just stopped moving and I placed the double and the other single in an incubator and added a handful more over the course of the next week because I was feeling broody. I believe it was all the movement that didn't allow the first single to progress further. Initially, the idea was just to see if I could hatch some in my shirt and also determine if Elliott's offspring would be decent layers. I had planned to have him with me for many years. But once we lost him, these eggs became WAY more sentimental to me. We're currently on day 22 or 23 for the 2 that were in my shirt, day 20 for a few others, and a handful of younger ones as well. So far, no pipping. I'm beside myself with worry since one is a double yolker. I know it's not my place to assist the eggs unless/until there's no progress by day 25...but what about the double yolker? At what point do I intervene? When do I candle to ensure life? It started out in my shirt with a lower temp so do I wait until day 23? 25? 27? When do I do the float test? When do I externally pip the air sac to possibly save one...if not both? From what I read, the double is doomed unless I intervene within a very small window of time. And I'm a newbie and while my gut is usually pretty spot on and I don't think it's time yet, when the intuition strikes, it'd be great if it lines up with any of your advice! I'ma twin and I had twins so if these twins make it...especially being my late roos offspring...they'll be pretty special! <3
