The 4th Annual BYC Easter Hatch-a-long

[misskeeter]

She's gone. My heart hurts.

 

[chickenpooplady]

She's gone. My heart hurts.

I am so sorry.

 

[myfivegirls]

Quick update on count ( don't know if it's final yet)
Set 63 eggs
Removed 4 clear
& 2 early quitters

45 chicks hatched
1 pipped early this AM & no movement since

After removing two that I'm pretty sure quit after lockdown, I'm going to leave the remaining eggs in until Wed;
I've candled them, and they look okay, but they may have died in the shell. Or, they're just late-bloomers.

Well, last night, I removed the last chicks that hatched - for a total of 46 chicks.

I then checked one of the eggs that looked like it had pooled blood in it, and sure enough, it was dead.
So, after seeing that one, I decided to check another one, also fully formed but no internal pip.
I ended up checking all of the remaining unhatched eggs, and most of them were fully formed but hadn't internally pipped before dying.
One chick took up the entire egg, so must have internally pipped, but was dead.
There was one egg that hadn't internally pipped, and the membrane was very dry. I was about to throw it out, but saw movement. I moistened the membrane, upped the humidity and put it back in the bator. By morning, it still alive but hadn't pipped yet. Plus, it looks like the sac is filled with blood. I don't know what happened, but it might have been I opened the incubator too many times, even though the humidity was high enough.
So, there were 10 eggs that died during lockdown and hatching. Not too bad for 1st time using an incubator.

But, I have one issue: I don't know what happened to one egg/chick. Am I doing the right math?

63 Set (42 in incubator; 21 under the two broody hens)
- 6 removed before lockdown
- 10 that didn't hatch
_____________
= that equals 47, but I only recorded that 46 hatched. I wrote down each chick that hatched, which egg it was from and then wing banded them all. So, either I have an extra chick or I miscounted somewhere along the way!

To make matters more confusing, I think a few of the chicks lost their wing bands, because I was just learning how to attach them.


I'm very pleased with the chicks that I did get, though! Sorry for all those who didn't have good hatches.

Here's my entry that I already posted on the "Broodies and their Babies" contest:



I sorted through over two thousand photos that I've taken since the eggs began hatching, and selected these two, plus two extra for you to enjoy and illustrate this year's broody hen "story" .

The story behind these photos is that I hatched 46 chicks for the Easter Hatch-a-Long, and gave them all to three broody hens.


Lydia the Patridge Chantecler (1 yr old) is a first-time mom, but has tried several times to go broody. When she went broody again right before the set date, I moved her into a dog crate & put 10 eggs under her. When the incubator chicks hatched and dried, I gave her a few chicks and took her eggs and put them in the incubator to finish. She didn't like that, so I gave her 5 eggs that had already pipped. Once they hatched, she entered the "mothering" stage and has been in her glory ever since!




The second broody hen is Daisy (2 yrs) - she has already raised two broods last year, the second of which she adopted 8 meat chicks and raised them to be very active. In fact, some of these chicks that just hatched are offspring of the chicks that she raised last year. (1 Freedom Ranger pullet & roo; "Michael Jessie" - Blue Andalusian/Easter Egger rooster - the dad to many of these chicks)
So, Daisy hatched one chick herself and adopted all the other incubator babies without a problem. She is a "super mom"!






These following photos are NOT entered in the contest, but to illustrate the rest of the "story".

The third broody hen, Pearl, a 1 year old Rhode Island White, decided to go broody on March 30th, so I quickly "corraled" her into service.
I gave her one of the hatched chicks, one pipped egg, and three fake eggs. She remained broody despite being moved from the nesting box to a kitty litter box and immediately receiving a chick on the first day! Then, yesterday (4/1), I gave her 4 more chicks, which she also accepted. This morning I moved her to a plastic dog crate, with food and water, and she drank water while staying huddled to keep the chicks warm. I can't believe she's "working out", seeing that she only went broody a few days ago! But, she has been making the broody hen noises for months, and only now decided to actually sit on the eggs.





So, the other 40 chicks are being shared by Lydia and Daisy, who are getting along pretty well. (Except for first day or two when it was time to dust bath or they both tried to go under the hover brooder at the same time.) They each have a separate dog crate, but I found them together in one crate on 3/31. Because it's been getting down into the low 20's at night and only 30s to 40s during the day, and there's so many chicks for them to share, I do have a heat lamp bulb and last year's hover brooder set up. In the first picture, Lydia is also enjoying the extra warmth of the hover brooder, which has two 75 watt bulbs in it. It's still not the "prescribed temp" in the chicken tractor, but if they get extra chilly, they just go under one of the broody hens. They're both feeding and teaching the chicks new things every day, and the chicks will respond to whichever one calls. And wow the chicks are feathering out so much faster than other years! Some of the first chicks that hatched on 3/29 already have their primary and secondary flight feathers.





Don't you just love broody hens?

 

[williab]

Misskeeter, so very sorry about your little Cleo...getting ready to do the float test on our remaining eggs...just can't bring myself to do eggtopsies...might need to on the shipped blrw cuz not a single one hatched...I guess the breeder would want to know...

 

[ronott1]

Quote: Try using IE for PCs or Sarari for Macs.

 

[misskeeter]

Misskeeter, so very sorry about your little Cleo...getting ready to do the float test on our remaining eggs...just can't bring myself to do eggtopsies...might need to on the shipped blrw cuz not a single one hatched...I guess the breeder would want to know...

Thank you.

I know she would have had a rough life... Doesn't make it easier.

Eggtopsies are hard for me too.... Necessary, but hard.

 

[ronott1]

For those keeping track, I'm pretty sure my sweet Cleo is on the way out.

Nobody can say I haven't done everything I could for her.... I'm devastated... Been crying for the last hour...,

She's gone. My heart hurts.

I am so sorry!

She lived a good but short life with you and you will always remember her with love.

Best

 

[Happy Chooks]

This was an extremely difficult contest for us to judge.

So many fantastic pictures! It was extremely close, but we had to pick only one.


And the winning picture of the Cutest Baby Fowl Picture Contest is.....

QuirkySue




Congratulations! You have won a Brinsea EcoGlow 20 Brooder!
​

Courtesy of Brinsea​

 

[chickenpooplady]

Congrats QuirkySue!!!

 

[misskeeter]

Congrats! That's a stinking cute picture!