I got lucky this week!!! My Buff girl who hatched out 10 chicks last fall went broody again. I just took the 11 hatching eggs I have and gave them to her. She was all pancaked out when I lifted the lid to her box but was completely silent until I showed her an egg. She puffed up really big and started making contented broody noises and tucked the egg under her. She let me put the rest of the eggs under her, and she made happy noises the whole time! I’m really hopeful that she’ll hatch them out well. She mothered her last batch until 15 weeks.
I got lucky this week!!! My Buff girl who hatched out 10 chicks last fall went broody again. I just took the 11 hatching eggs I have and gave them to her. She was all pancaked out when I lifted the lid to her box but was completely silent until I showed her an egg. She puffed up really big and started making contented broody noises and tucked the egg under her. She let me put the rest of the eggs under her, and she made happy noises the whole time! I’m really hopeful that she’ll hatch them out well. She mothered her last batch until 15 weeks.
I think I need to do more adjusting to my incubator. I just candled my eggs from the past two weeks, and I've had to toss half of them. I think the temp is trending too low now. GAH!
I think I need to do more adjusting to my incubator. I just candled my eggs from the past two weeks, and I've had to toss half of them. I think the temp is trending too low now. GAH!
I had two chicks hatch yesterday. One is an oops chick. I noticed after it hatched that it had a single comb. I was supposed to be hatching Dark Cornish, which have a pea comb. Another one of my mixed flock eggs got into my hatching eggs. I think it is a Buff cross. As the chick is yellow/red with yellow feet. Options for mom are Delaware or New Hampshire, I think. It could be from Chicken Surprise too (Buff/New Hamp). We'll have to wait and see. I'm also going to go back to starting my eggs in the Brinsea, even though I can't set as many eggs, I think I'll have more hatch because I'm getting abysmal hatch rates starting in the Franken-bator. I'm keeping my eye out for a Scratch and Dent Ovation 56. I don't care if it is an EX at this point. I can deal with the humidity myself.
Here is the Dark Cornish chick.
I'll tell you what, NutriDrench never ceases to amaze me. Right after I took the picture above, I dosed the Cornish chick with NutriDrench and put it back. I then dosed Oopsie Chick as well and as I was putting Oopsie back I saw the Cornish went from sitting back on its hocks to standing and walking.
So, it has been a while since I last posted. Sadly, the Cornish chick that hatched with Oopsie died a few days ago. I really can't say from what.
Last week, I had 4 Cornish babies hatch out of 6 eggs that made it to lock down. These were eggs that I had moved to the Brinsea because of the unreliability of the Franken-bator for starting eggs.
On Sunday, I came to the conclusion that one of my Cornish hens was broody and decided to separate her from the other hen and the rooster.
Last night, I made a horrifying discovery. I checked on my broody buff hen, who I've named Molly, because her chicks were due to hatch today. I lifted her off the eggs to see if there was any action and I smelled something HORRIBLE and I only saw 8 eggs and one dead chicks. One of her eggs went bad and exploded. The dead chick had successfully hatched, but it was covered in rotten egg nastiness and died. I made the decision to transfer Molly and the remaining eggs to a spare box with clean hay. While moving the eggs, I found that two of the eggs had pipped but had died in shell. These eggs were closest to the rotten egg and were covered in goop. So I moved Molly's six remaining eggs into the clean box with her. One of the eggs had pipped and had a very lively baby trying to get out. I also trimmed away Molly's stomach feathers that had the nasty egg goop on them. This morning, I checked and she had 3 lively babies. I checked again a little while ago and she had 4 babies!
At this point, I decided to try grafting the 4 babies that hatched last week to Molly. I know she is fully capable of caring for 10 chicks at a time (because that is how many she hatched last time). She took to them right away, tucking them up underneath her wings. Now the rest is up to those babies. Since they are older, I shut the box so they don't wander off and added small dishes of food and water in the box for them. They seem to be responding to her "food" call. Which is nice. I'll be watching them closely today.
That sucks Red.
