The 5th Annual BYC Easter Hatch-a-long!

[ronott1]

This has been the second most depressing hatch I have ever had... Three on day 21, funnyfeets on day 23, then three that pipped & died, followed by a normal but small chick on day 24. Candled everything left on day 24 after the last chick fluffed up, and they were still alive - two hadn't even finished drawing down. I figured I'd better get miss feet and her new roomie out of there and sprayed the feet - Blue-kote did not help the attention paid to the feet, it intensified it. So, miss feet went into the mini brooder, and the others went into the last empty battery brooder... but I forgot to adjust the gate and the new one was small enough to get out into the feed tray and then jump/fall to the floor - where of course she found her way to the sump pit.

. Today five more have pipped internally, then died without an external pip, two died after external pip.

Because I have a kitten in intensive care with a respiratory infection, our calving season officially started today (thank you, #182, your daughter is beautiful) and a customer coming to pick up twenty flats of plants tomorrow that had to be moved by hand, I'd decide that it was time to pull the plug tonight & post my four survivors. Didn't have time, because a neighbor called to let us know Jake (my tom turkey) was on the road down by their house. DH drove me down, hefted giant bird over fence, & I walked him across the pasture back to the barn... where he promptly hopped up on the fence by the hen house and went to sleep before he could get scolded.

Then I came back to the house... and heard cheeping coming from the incubator! My sole 'rock' egg hatched! It's a BR/WR cross, didn't really want the cross, but I hadn't set any of her eggs before and wanted to know if it was viable. Couldn't have faulted her if it didn't hatch - but I can't believe it did! It looks healthy and this is day 26!!!

Now it's nearly midnight & I need to make dinner - if baby is fluffy by the time I'm done, I'll candle again. Now, I'm not giving up on anyone that moves!

I hurt for you just reading this!

It can only get better from here.

 

[Junibutt]

This Hatch-Along was a lot of fun
​

Although, I was not official part of HAL, however I did have lots of fun, excitement, anxiety, help and you name it during this HAL. It was my first time hatching, I did it in the name of my kids, but I was the one who was having the most fun, they were mostly in school. HaHaHa!

My numbers were not bad for a first time hatch. I put a total of 31 eggs 11 of which were Whole Foods and they never developed. So I am counting them out. All remaining 20 eggs were shipped, 8 of them did not develop, 1 died by Day 14 candling. 2 more were discarded at lock-down for failure to develop further, so 9 went into lock-down. Out of these 9, 7 hatched already, 1 is still in incubator, and 1 I just discarded because it still looked like a day 12-14 egg. The one remaining in incubator looks stuck at Day 17-18, I cannot detect any movement or see the beak but will give it couple of more days since its Day 22 now. Chances are probably less than 5% but I will still give it a chance.

So final count is 7 out of 31 if we count Whole Foods eggs and 7 out of 20 if we only count shipped eggs.

Out of the shipped eggs I had 4/9 hatch from one source and 3/11 from the other. Both came with eggs bubble wrapped & placed in shredded newspaper, however, source 1 was double boxed, plus the eggs were placed vertically with air-cell side up. Source 2 did not have them double boxed plus the eggs were laid on their sides.

I also noticed that from source 2, larger eggs hatched-smaller did not (possibly because of air-cell size). Also strangely enough dirty eggs hatched from this source and clean eggs did not. But again, dirty eggs were the larger of the two.

Here are some pics I would like to share, notes are below the pics



My First-Born CCL Hope




All 3 CCL's Hope, Faith & Rex from top to bottom.




CCLs in sleepy mode. They love this lego-box and love to climb inside it.




First-Born Wyandotte Penguin. He/she is supposed to be Chocolate. Any takers on color/sex?
Look at the beautiful toes though!


All the Chocolate Wyandotte's together, As you can notice
Penguin (the one on the right) is darker than the others and has distinct
mask on his eyes. Other 3 are light colored. So which one(s) are pullets?




Side-view of Penguin (in the middle)




Some of them basking in the sunlight

 

[ShelbyCoral]

Goodnight everyone!

 

[GerbilsOnToast]

I hurt for you just reading this!

It can only get better from here.

Thank you, but I really didn't mean to by whiney - just tired. There are smiles in between - Beldar (the kitten) stood up and walked about a foot today; wobbled a lot but did not collapse

. Two days ago, when I got back from the vet with the saline, I really didn't expect her to live long enough for me to infuse her. I have two dozen eggs with swimmers in the Cinco de Mayo HAL, got 288 rhubarb planted today, and a turkey on the highway beats dealing with bovines on the highway ANY day! And the calf, while a couple weeks early, is healthy and perfect. It all balances.

 

[Cynthia12]

Gerbils, all I can say is..wow, you are due for something really really good to happen. Good..ya hear? Good stuff.

You have a great attitude!

 

[Cynthia12]

Hope everyone is sleeping well. I am up with chicks still hatching..from my missing in action eggs.

Good night to those that get to sleep.

 

[Junibutt]

Hope everyone is sleeping well. I am up with chicks still hatching..from my missing in action eggs.

Good night to those that get to sleep.

I can stay up for the chat and moral support. Although won't be of much help since you are the expert here.

 

[foxvalleyfarm]

Ugg...I just went to check on my babies and 1 of the 5 is missing. It's the first one out... The little silver chipmunk... What's worse is my mother in law had Kerr the cat in without saying anything and he had some blood on him... No body or blood to be found anywhere else. I'm literally sick over this. He was the only one that didn't need any help hatching and was walking great and eating and drinking...

 

[TJChickens]

Ugg...I just went to check on my babies and 1 of the 5 is missing. It's the first one out... The little silver chipmunk... What's worse is my mother in law had Kerr the cat in without saying anything and he had some blood on him... No body or blood to be found anywhere else. I'm literally sick over this. He was the only one that didn't need any help hatching and was walking great and eating and drinking...

So sorry about the chick loss. Life really hurts sometimes....My son was thrilled to finally hatch a Serama after spending lots of money on shipped eggs. The chick was adorable. Last night I was watching the chick thinking how darling he was and he suddenly flipped over backwards and died. That quick! I gave him cpr for about 15 minutes. No sign of life again ever.....I've raised hundreds of birds , but that was probably a first. I've since read that Seramas die like that sometimes. Sudden death, heart attack, whatever. It really shocked me.

On the call duck front....
I'm still up again tonight because another duck is needing some help. The other one is doing pretty good. He is finally just now all the way out of the shell. The last shreds of membrane didn't want to let go of him. His yolk finally absorbed today. He just still has a bit of a messy umbilical. No bleeding though. Thanks for sticking with me last night!

The one I'm working on now had pipped internally a couple days ago. I gave him an air hole earlier this evening and then just a little while ago I decided to free his head. So he's back in the incubator like that for now. At least until tomorrow. I could see that he still had a marble size yolk.

Tonight, I helped a silver pheasant hatch as well. This one was under an inexperienced broody. He was zipped all the way around but then dried out too much. So that was easy!

 

[michaelf]

Good Friday morning!!!!