Thank You - Intervention tips

[dtoddskiles]

Our first incubation. (Maybe our last) The first egg pipped and broke the membrane. We could see feathers. 48 hours went by and no progress. Base on some recommendation we chipped the egg with tweezers and dabbed the exposed membrane with water. No luck. Finally I decided "we're losing him" and took some small surgical snips I keep (I have a med bag) and carefully cut the membrane. He came out fine and is raising a ruckus after 24 hours. He won't shut up! The one I didn't help didn't make it. Clearly we had humidity issues.

 

[WalnutHill]

Don't give up on incubation, but do set more than a few eggs if you can. It's hard to raise a single chick, or even two. My minimum set now is a dozen, and any extra are easy to rehome.

Good job on the rescue! You may need to search Craigslist for another chick to keep him company unless you want a pocket pet chicken.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Our first incubation. (Maybe our last) The first egg pipped and broke the membrane. We could see feathers. 48 hours went by and no progress. Base on some recommendation we chipped the egg with tweezers and dabbed the exposed membrane with water. No luck. Finally I decided "we're losing him" and took some small surgical snips I keep (I have a med bag) and carefully cut the membrane. He came out fine and is raising a ruckus after 24 hours. He won't shut up! The one I didn't help didn't make it. Clearly we had humidity issues.

My first hatch was a bomb (mine was temp issue though) and I only ended up with one hatcher. (And I didn't think I'd ever do it again, I was so dissapointed. But I changed my gameplan and had an awesome 2nd and awesome 3rd hatch.) Oh he was soooo loud. He was only quiet and happy when he was out with us. The first two nights I slept on the floor by the brooder to keep him quiet, after that I moved the brooder beside my bed so he could see me and I could get some sleep...lol I would definitely recommend stopping by TSC or a feed place that sells chicks and see if you can get him a friend f there are no other hatchers. It would be much easier. Mine was hatched in September when no one was selling them, so we ended up with a pet chicken....lol

If you decided to try again, (and I hope you do,) this is my method for dealing with humidity: http://letsraisechickens.weebly.com...anuals-understanding-and-controlling-humidity
Good luck with your new baby!

 

[dtoddskiles]

We got a really nice incubator - fan, turner, etc. Started with 13 eggs. 2 broke in shipment, so we set 11.
Of the 11, 2 were clear, 2 went bad, leaving 7.
#1 was the rescue. We call him Plucky
#2 hatched normally.
#3 started to hatch but stopped. When 24 hours went by with no noise, we opened the egg and he was very very dead. Shrink wrapped.
#4, 5, and 6 - Since we're at day 29, we noticed the membrane had pulled away on the previous chicks and made a hard decision to intervene. So we have 3 peepers who have been given an escape hatch and are breathing and peeping. Not out yet, but they've got a big hole to come through. VERY nerve-wracking opening that membrane.
#7 has no pip, but we'll give it an extra couple days. But I don't have much hope.

We could swear we saw two beaks in Egg 6, but will keep an eye out. It was larger than the rest. But we're still waiting for whatever is in there to emerge. The egg came with a pink sticker of some sort on it.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

We got a really nice incubator - fan, turner, etc. Started with 13 eggs. 2 broke in shipment, so we set 11.
Of the 11, 2 were clear, 2 went bad, leaving 7.
#1 was the rescue. We call him Plucky
#2 hatched normally.
#3 started to hatch but stopped. When 24 hours went by with no noise, we opened the egg and he was very very dead. Shrink wrapped.
#4, 5, and 6 - Since we're at day 29, we noticed the membrane had pulled away on the previous chicks and made a hard decision to intervene. So we have 3 peepers who have been given an escape hatch and are breathing and peeping. Not out yet, but they've got a big hole to come through. VERY nerve-wracking opening that membrane.
#7 has no pip, but we'll give it an extra couple days. But I don't have much hope.

We could swear we saw two beaks in Egg 6, but will keep an eye out. It was larger than the rest. But we're still waiting for whatever is in there to emerge. The egg came with a pink sticker of some sort on it.

You did your first hatch with shipped eggs, (much more complicated and lower hatch rate to begin with.) So don't get too upset with yourself because shipped eggs are a lot harder to have good hatches from especially for a first time hatcher. I assist when I feel it is neccessary and it can be nerve wracking especially when you second guess wether what you're doing is right.
Do you happen to be incubating duck eggs?

 

[dtoddskiles]

We did mallard ducks. Some folks have told us ducks are harder to hatch than chickens. It's a long story about why we opted for ducks over chickens, but it boils down to the fact we were living in a fancy managed community that told us what color to paint our door. And we could get away with mallards and there was nothing they could do. (Torturing my HOA was so much fun...)

Update - we moved to a 3 acre lot in the country a week before hatching. So the ducks are welcome to stay as long as they want.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

We did mallard ducks. Some folks have told us ducks are harder to hatch than chickens. It's a long story about why we opted for ducks over chickens, but it boils down to the fact we were living in a fancy managed community that told us what color to paint our door. And we could get away with mallards and there was nothing they could do. (Torturing my HOA was so much fun...)

Update - we moved to a 3 acre lot in the country a week before hatching. So the ducks are welcome to stay as long as they want.

LOL. When you said 29 days, it triggered for me that we weren't talking chicken...lol (At least I would have ben very surprised if it was chicken and succesfully hatching that late...lol)
Ducks can be a different story. I have absolutely no experience w/duck hatching and everything I know is what I've gleemed from reading on here...lol Which isn't much more than they should be misted once a day....lol
I do, however have a duck egg pictorail for air cell size that I looked up for someone else:


Other than that. I am knowledgeless....lol But I still wish you luck!!