The 7th Annual BYC Easter Hatch-A-Long!

[UGLYFOOT]

OMG!! I had to skip 300+ post again. If I haven't already here are my final numbers.

Total hatched 93 chicken and 14 quail

Not sure if this counts in the total 1 chick and 1 quail died in the brooder after that hatch count.

Hope I did not miss a post about the emu. I guess I will have to sort through them all.

 

[myfivegirls]

Hatch total: 63 chicks
Assisted 12, but then culled 6 b/c of leg/toe issues & one crooked beak -
Left with 57 good ones, 4 of which still look rough due to not fully fluffing out.
And to review- set 100 eggs, went into lockdown with 76 eggs.
The good news is ...
8 went to their new home today!
And I have more eggs in the incubator!
Turkeys due this weekend - first hatch! Yay!

 

[DKFarms]

This is my first time hatching. I am incubating 9 Ancona Duck eggs. I have a still-air incubator, which I'm familiar with now, after practicing for a week. They just set today.

 

[Penny Hen]

My chick eggs are hatching. One is out. One half zipped and got stuck and died. The third one has pipped and I just raised the humidity so it doesn't stick too. I had begun to believe they wouldn't hatch. So there is one more egg but it isn't due to the first. It just sort of fell into the bator late.

 

[TheChickenQueen]

Does anyone have advice for splay leg? One of the chicks I had to assist appears to have it

And all the other times I had chicks with it they died.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Congrats to the winners and yah!!!for all the cute chick pictures.

My final count is 1 out of the 3. the other two were dead in shell after trying to zip wrong end.
My chick is so lonely it keeps chirping nonstop and the feed stores close to me have no chicks till the 6th, craigslist has none either. anyone close to me to sell a few chicks to keep mine company??

I had a solo chick for a week before I could get her friends. Get a hand mirror and put it against the wall of the brooder (down to the floor). It'll be their little friend until the others arrive.

Does anyone have advice for splay leg? One of the chicks I had to assist appears to have it

And all the other times I had chicks with it they died.

If you act very early, you have a chance of fixing it (depending on how severe it is). Make a little hobble brace out of VetRap or medical tape. More details on this in the chicken podiatry links toward the end of Sally's Hatching 101 article. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. It's worth a try.

I had one with mild/moderate splay leg in my last hatch, treated immediately (which still wet in the incubator), kept it hobbled for 3-4 days (making sure it could get food and water). After that, it was running around like nobody's business - I couldn't pick him out of the group now...

Good luck!

- Ant Farm

 

[deserteggs22]

I have a silkie chick with legs like this

What do I do?

 

[flocktastic]

I came to post a miraculous chick story and I just saw iheartpoultry's story which is somewhat similar to ours!!!

I had a maran hatch and from the moment he/she hatched, it was sticky and finally needed assistance getting out of the bottom half of the shell. It was a sticky DISASTER. Super sticky, pieces of shell stuck to it and the worst part, was it just wanted to lay on its back and chirp. It couldn't get up...we'd try setting it up and it would flop over and fall on its back and just lay there chirping.

As time went on and we'd cleaned it off a bit, we left it in the bator, hoping for the best. Well...we were sure she'd die. She just couldnt get off her back and laid there with her little feet in the air. Now don't get me wrong - I used to be a vet tech - I have been in the OR and I've stood by for animals being euthanized when they've been too injured or too old and sick to go on,

The only thing was, this little one would chirp to high heaven at times - she had some FIGHT in her like she was desperate to live. But the she'd get quiet and a few times, I truly thought she'd pass and I kept telling my husband we needed to cull her and not let her go on (I also noticed one wing appeared shorter than the other and if we sat her upright, she had almost a hunchback appearance. Then she'd flop on her back again, pathetically.

Well my husband was busy and honestly, I just couldn't bring myself to do it!!! Something about this little one just bothered me and I couldn't do it. I told the kids she was dying. And when I checked back again, she was laying on her back still...breathing very shallow. This was it, I thought. Yet something (I don't know WHAT) said "let her be..."

I went to sit on the couch for a bit and take some notes and I planned on demanding my husband cull her if she lived to see him get home.

Well all of the sudden I started to hear frantic, repeated chirping like she was trying to get my attention. It was louder and very repetitive - it was different.
So I ran over to the bator and she was up on her FEET! All by herself!!!! And she was looking up out of the bator like "HELLO??!!!! Lemme outta here!!!"

I thought it was a fluke and she'd fall over again - but no! She stayed on her feet & started running around the bator! I watched her a bit - couldn't believe it. I got a bunch of stuff ready to give her a bath and remove any residual stickiness, shell fragments, etc.

She was a disaster but she chirped and squirmed like crazy for her bath! I noticed her fluff is sparse in some parts...her one wing was smaller...her overall stature was weird. After her bath, I put her in her own little cardboard box in the brooder so the others wouldn't bother her for a bit. I honestly figured "Ok...now she'll likely die after all of that..."

I had an errand to run and fully expected to come home to a dead chick. Nope! She was just hanging out! I let her assimilate in with the others. Still not hopeful.


But here we are and although she's quite awkward and weird looking right now (her pictures actually don't look too bad compared to real life lol) but she's eating, drinking, running around now and her wing seems to not be as misshapen as it originally was. Her fluff is scraggly and her stature is still a bit funky but she's straightened up a bit...but she's AMAZING!!

I'm SO glad I listened to whatever that voice was, telling me not to cull her yet. Because I'm not kidding - this chickie was on death's doorstep and I'd steady counted her as a death.

So even if she's awkward - at least if her quality of life is good and she is eating, drinking and getting around normal, she'll just stay as my pet - no breeding or anything of course...for now I've been calling her Frankie for "Frankenstein" due to her wonky physical appearance lol but today has by far been her best "looking" day.

I hope she has a long, happy life with us

Don't always give up...& sometimes if there's a little voice telling you something else, it can pay to listen!

 

[Scovy Momma]

& another just hatched!

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

I have a silkie chick with legs like this

What do I do?

Check these sites out:

https://sites.google.com/a/poultrypedia.com/poultrypedia/poultry-podiatry

http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2012/02/spraddle-leg-in-baby-chicks-what-is-it.html

- Ant Farm