Speckledhen Expired babies *GRAPHIC PICS*

[speckledhen]

Ooh, sorry about the bad luck with those eggs, chickenbottom.

 

[Cetawin]

Quote:
Oh I am so sorry. These eggs were for a broody who decided they were not to her satisfaction because she did not steal them so she pushed them away. so, I am happy with having 8 babies from 13 eggs at lockdown.



BTW Cyn, I just had to threaten Cannonball and the other Delaware with telling his grandma about their bad behavior if they did not straighten up! They settled down and are napping.

 

[chickenbottom]

Quote:
they were first time broodies so i didnt expect there to be many babies but i did expect a few at the least two. they were very good brooders got off about once a day to do there business and eat and drink. i just dont know what went wrong. and thanks

 

[insiderart]

Looks to me like the delaware and smoky's baby both pipped the aircell, but I would concur that they probably grew too large and couldn't get out. It's a problem I see a lot in shipped eggs. Huge chicks that can't get out. I have a theory that there is damage to the integrity of the aircell membrane, and that strength of this aircell membrane is one thing that keeps the chick inside from growing too large to get out of the egg. Kind of like a damper on a fire... I'm not even talking about detatched membranes. I think that even if a part of the aircell membrane is loose the chick is allowed to grow into a larger space than it would normally. Kind of like that thing about goldfish who grow to the size of their bowl.

I have eggtopsied many many (dare I say many) hatching eggs to find fully formed yolk absorbed huge chicks inside. Many will have even tried to pip the aircell. I used to think it was alwas the humidity, but since I have gotten these more expensive incubators I am coming to the conclusion that the shipped eggs are producing chicks which are too large to rotate and pip the shell. I have manually hatched several shipped egg chicks. I begin to really start watching them after the pippers have zipped. When I do manually hatch live chicks inside shells, generally they have pipped the aircell but are lying inside languishing, and not even making an attempt to pip the shell. When I do get them hatched they are almost always huge chicks. I am learning how to hatch them without killing them, and I am getting better. But I feel that since they are shipped I can accept the one manual hatch. I would not make this a habit with eggs I harvested with my own chickens.

Now I am a scientist by training and I know this is really anecdotal evidence. However, when I have a really good hatch of shipped eggs the chicks that hatch normally are usually smaller. When I eggtopsy these fully formed dead eggs, the chicks inside are usually comparatively fairly large and almost always appear stuck in position. This is different from when you can tell they are definitely shrink wrapped from low humidity (I've seen those too.) I suppose I could do a true study, but I would have to write a grant for that. And where would I get funding? LOL.

Well that's my theory anyway.

Terri

 

[Cetawin]

That is interesting. I can see where you are coming from with that theory indeed. But, the orp was not a really large baby and clearly had an intestinal issue. The EE was larger but there was shell room so I would not think too large. The delaware was the biggest of the three and clearly looks like it was just too large.

I find your theory very interesting though, you may be on to something here. LOL

 

[insiderart]

Quote:
The EE I discount here. It does not appear to have tried to pip the aircell. It is difficult to tell if the intestinal prolapse occured before or after trying to pip the aircell.

The Del is obviously in a position to pip the aircell, if it didn't already. It is in a position I see often in these chicks. As is also the orp, head up, beak up.

As far as intestinal prolapse. It would make sense to me that a strong chick struggling against a small space could cause intestinal prolapse here, as the avenue is not truly sealed until the umbilicus dries out after hatching, and is the weak link in the system. It is also possible that the chick would have appeared larger without the intestines prolapsed, and indeed intestinal prolapse could be a symptom (though this is more speculation, but everything is open to interpretation here) of a chick growing too large for the egg. The Orp also appears pretty "juicy" which is also something I would expect to see in a situation where a chick has pushed to such an extent that it has prolapsed it's intestines. One would expect quite a bit of loss of the internal fluids which lubricate the abdominal cavity, along with some edema from the prolapsed organs.

More theory.

Terri

*edited because I can't type!*

 

[shelleyd2008]

This is exactly why I don't bother opening the eggs. I can't bear to see the dead babies and don't know what to look for anyway.
Sorry you lost them Cetawin

 

[Germaine_11.20]

I open the majority of mine too.
Some of my last batch of chicks were stuck in the shell (son thought he was helping and opened the incubator to take out some chicks that had hatched when I was not home)
Anyway...I helped out 8 chicks and at least 1/2 of them were huge. They filled the whole egg. One expired but the other 7 are doing well. It took two days for them to actually look good enough to transfer into the main brooder with the chicks that hatched by themselves.
I think you may be right Cetawin.
My own eggs that I hatched out were the perfect scenario. Every one developed and everyone hatched by themselves and were of normal size.

 

[farmin'chick]

Yes...Too big babies have been my biggest problem with shipped eggs this summer. I learned (from my broodies!) to watch for the pip, and monitor them closely. Most of these big babies cannot get to the aircell and pip directly to the outside. Then, they are STUCK in position, not from humidity issues but because they can't get wiggle room in the egg. I have had to hand hatch more than I'd care to count of the ones that survived this summer.

 

[speckledhen]

You may be onto something here, Terri. I don't have alot of trouble with too-large babies that I collect and hatch here (except Meg's, who herself is humongous, then bred with Suede, produces Baby Huey sized chicks). It has most often been the shipped eggs, though on occasion, we have had to extract a huge Orp from a shell he just couldnt maneuver to get out of, even though he pipped.