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

[ronott1]

Okay everyone these images may be hard for some to see I don't know how to hide them or I would. I'm thankful that this chick did not survive to hatch but it's still sad. Little thing didn't have a snoballs chance.
These images could be hard for some to stomach.
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This side of its head is flat and it seems to not have an eye on this side. You can also see how messed up his back is. The lower beak was longer and also somewhat crossbeaked.


The other side of its head had a rather large bulge including what appears to be one normal eye and a visible dark area just below its skin. I'm wondering if the missing eye is under the skin on the same side as the other normal looking eye. I don't know if you can see the size of the bulge or the darkness under the skin in the photo.



You can see in this photo he only had one leg. He did appear to have a normal looking vent. He did seem to have a possible misshapen abdomen but that could have been from absorbing the egg yolk I'm not sure.

Everything was absorbed but I think due to its cross beak and lack of leg it couldnt make an external pip let alone zip.
Poor baby. Oh also this chick is a silver laced wyandotte/buff Orpington mix.

Yes, not normal. It had either genetic or development issues and would not have made it.

 

[OneMountainAcres]

My Easter babies are growing so fast!

The Easter poults.

Fuzzy little silkie butts!

And since i just happened to be in the right place at the right time, i caught Merci, just as she laid her egg lol.

 

[chattery41]

This was very difficult for us to judge, as there are so many amazing entries! Thank you to everyone that entered!

The winners of the Flapper Contest are.........


1st Place:

Farmer Viola

2nd Place:

Mirajane

Congratulations!​

Congrats to you both. Love the second one

 

[caeti21]

Ok my final number 4 out of 6 hatched one egg was not fertile
one pipped but stopped i think when the other four hatch the humidity got way up there causing an issue , 4 hatched one of the four seems weak so idk if he will make it poor little guy i hope he does

 

[wornoutmomto3]

My incubator just played a very cruel fool's day joke, and i am NOT laughing. just lost an entire hatch for an unknown reason. Temp was perfect, triple assesed. Humidty was just right, quadruple measured. 26 out of 28 were fertile and growing at day 7 candling. Day 13 candling and 100% quit!
Another bunch of eggs are set. If this bunch is a bust that will be three failed hatches in a row, and this incubator may be flying out of the nearest window.

 

[Sueg4332]

I have been just miserable all day.

A critter climbed in my shed window (that I forgot to close) and killed my entire brooder of chicks. Not just a few... all 41.i woke up to find 41 dead chicks, or what was left of them. It was just freaking horrible to clean up. The only silver lining is my older new bloodline faverolles were untouched.

How sad, I swear the preys just sit back to figure out how to make us unhappy with them. Feeling for you! big time..

 

[gander007]

I put these eggs in the incubator on the 13th of March and they are hatching today the 1st of April ya no joke





Hatched 1st April 2016

I could not have planed it any better and they are both healthy

 

[Wickedchicken6]

Quote: Whew! I'm finally at home long enough (and with a rested enough brain) to reply.

@ronott1
Ron, I completely respect your view. I do like the idea of debating this because thought and discussion is good regarding these types of things.

But I respectfully wish to disagree and here's why... (and this is meant for anyone reading this, and not just Ron...lol)

I looked back in the BYC HAL thread and found it was approximately Jan 16 when I mentioned I had switched to grain for my chickens feed. I had purchased a bag of the additive to mix with the grain to make it a complete feed. I did use it for a while but I felt that they were wasting it so I stopped. But even without the additive I am "'close" to a chickens needs with the feeds I'm using. I did look all this up last fall when we combined our red prosso millet to see if it was safe for my chickys. It is a surprisingly good feed. I had found a table comparing the grains I use but I can't find that darn table now. But the variety of grains I am using covers a lot of the bases. The chickens also ate two second cut alfalfa bales. Their diet's not perfect, but respectable...and while I can't say it's a balanced diet, I'm close. So I wouldn't say it's poor feed, just not as completely balanced as the store bought type.

In saying this, I also don't want chickens that can't thrive unless they are on a perfect food. I don't have performance based chickens that I'm pushing, such as caged egg layers or meat chickens raised in a bio secure controlled environment. I have a backyard assortment of mixed heritage breeds that once upon a time must have lived solely on outdoor foraging and grains. I don't want a high maintenance chicken. I want them to sustain themselves the same way they always have. If I want better performance...the time and effort should be put into it by selecting the very best and only the very best all around producing chickens for meat or for eggs. I can also feed a store bought feed.

Do I expect a chicken to perform as well on regular feed as a perfectly balanced feed? Probably not.
Do I expect a chicken to still perform well on a decent, well rounded diet. Absolutely!

Even if I didn't have a great diet for a small amount of time, I still would not expect a chicken to develop something as severe as wry neck, or the like. Perhaps if a chicken was fed a diet that was very deficient over a longer period of time, I would expect this.
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I expected that I might see the following:

1) decreased laying
2) poorer quality eggs shells
3) change in behavior, possibly feather picking or similar behaviors

I did not see any of the above. I assumed these would be the first signs of deficiency.
I had hoped at that time that they would stop or decease their laying and utilize the high energy food to keep warm.

If I had chickens from different lines or many chickens showing signs, then I would be thinking I have a serious flock issue. But this is one distinct line out of 5 lines that have consistently shown to have problems with wry neck. I did have a huge wreck with my sheep which was 100% my fault; a deficiency in iodine. Two later born ram lambs bred the flock before we weaned them (which was still far earlier than breed book guideline requirements, but obviously not soon enough) We didn't realize the ewes were bred...and they hadn't received a sufficient amount of iodide salt/mineral. It was across the board with the majority of my ewes.

In addition to the prolapsing in our sheep that I mentioned earlier, I've also dealt with false ring womb, thiamine deficiency, allergies, eye infection, pregnancy toxemia, poor hooves, questionable udders and a really serious genetic defect passed on from one ram to his females where every ewe prolapsed their intestines when they got close to lambing. In our cattle herd (which we've taken care of for 25+ years but only acquired in 2011) we've dealt with poor udders, poor feet, prolapsing, peaky back in a line of shorthorns and over sized birth weights.

I've asked a lot of questions (prior to the internet) and no one could give definite answers so I did a lot of experimenting and keeping of defective traits. In all of the above, not once did I ever get any satisfactory results. Not once. Anything I ever tried to improve upon by breeding, the issue out came back to bite me in the butt.

I kept offspring and their offspring and so on from the best of the best of the prolapser's for 12 years until coyotes got the last IGB ewe from that line. As I culled it became apparent entire lines were affected by recessive traits even with things such as eye infections. I found things such as thiamine deficiency, false ring womb, even prolapsing seemed tied to the inability of that animal and that animal's line to properly utilize certain vitamins/minerals... basically a predisposition to have developing a deficiency. And that is what I believe with this line of chickens. It's not that they're Silkies, or that it's breed related. I believe it just happens to be related chickens from one particular farm.

If all I wanted was eating eggs, it wouldn't matter so much if they have this. I would deal with the problem as it arose. But I wish to breed and sell chicks. In my way of thinking, why would I keep offspring from chickens having problems within a related line or that has had problems themselves...when I can breed stock from perfectly healthy stock kept under the same conditions. Up to this point I've kept everything I've hatched. I do not wish wry neck on anyone so this particular line of birds will not be propagated any further. The chicks I have from them now will be given to someone who will not be breeding them, possibly my nieces or maybe my past co worker who understands the whole genetic aspect. The roosters will be dispatched from the flock, in what form, I'm not sure yet. And as far as the eggs I've been collecting, I will not be setting all the eggs. (I just had to say that...lol)

Here is a really good read on nutrition and management for anyone who is interested.

http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/poultry/nutrition_and_management_poultry/nutritional_requirements_of_poultry.html

I also am aware of the vaulted skull issue with some breeds. It's a hot topic to discuss so all I will say is that I agree with you that if such birds receive such an injury, then yes, treating it as you mentioned would be the thing to do. I am breeding birds for toughness, cold tolerance, low maintenance and the ability to free range and forage effectively and for well rounded exceptional traits. Vaulted skulls is not a trait I ever expect to deal with.

All of this meant to be food for thought and I respect everyone's choices. I've taken a lot from beef information and now from the internet...but most of our practices have derived from our own experiences. I certainly don't mean to sound harsh and heartless. One cow has one calf in nine months. A ewe can have 1-5 lambs in 5 months. Having one chicken have a weakness or defect is one bird. Raising offspring, even from a hen, can mean 170-300+ offspring in a year that may carry the defect. You can see where I'm going with this. That can be a whole lot of heartache for you or others.

Here's an interesting read close to how I'm seeing things. Thank you to everyone who has read this. (I do apologize for the novel length piece...lol)

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-chicken-supply-genetics-exclusive-idUSKBN0FE0C820140709

 

[Wickedchicken6]

Quote: @Penny Hen

I don't think it's strange at all and I totally get what you're talking about. Technically, I should have been culled. How about the following...


It's interesting you mention diabetes, guilty as charged here. My maternal grandfather has diabetes on his side and several people have it. I was "diagnosed" with prediabetes in 2008, but I know now that it's been something that has been giving issue since I was 20. If I had known or understood what was going on I would've been able to modify my choices and not been as sick so much.

Diabetes runs on my husband's mother's and father's side. Our teenage son already cannot eat or drink items with a lot of sugar. It will only be a matter of time. He already adjusts for the sugar.

Cancer runs in the women on my maternal grandmother's side. My great-grandmother died from it, my grandmother caught it soon enough and survived. My mother was diagnosed with cancer when she was 39 and it kept moving until it killed her when she was 47. That was almost 2 decades ago. Now her older sister, my aunt has had breast cancer twice. None of the cancers are related but it seems to creep insidiously through the family regardless of what the doctors say. My younger sister and I already have started the regular testing women get in their 50's. It will only be a matter of time until we have it. The thing we have on our side is our control of environmental factors. My mom smoked and drank in excess. My aunt smokes. My sister and I don't do either.
I also have cancer on my paternal side...I have an aunt who passed in her early 30's from cancer.
My husband's side also has cancer. his maternal grandmother had it.

My husband also has celiac disease. His paternal grandfather found out in his late 70's that he had it. We've let our son know that his children may have it. (It seems to skip every second generation in his family)

Second last and probably the worst, allergies. I have terrible allergies, I live on allergy meds 365 days a year. I knew my maternal uncle had some allergies. As we've all aged I've found out my Mom had allergies, my grandmother is affected greatly now by allergies, my sister now has worse allergies than I do and we've now found out our maternal great grandmother had very bad allergies.

Lastly, dementia runs through my maternal grandmother's side. Everyone of her 12 siblings have developed dementia except for her younger sister. (And my grandma is still pretty good most days.)

It's something I've thought about, but at this point I'm not sure what I'm going to do aside from treating it for wry neck. I'll probably mark it and keep an eye on it to see how things go. I don't really like the idea of culling it.

@Razadia

I totally understand. I don't like the idea of culling either.

In my case of wry neck, the chick did not respond. I find that makes it a little bit easier when I know the chick would be suffering otherwise.

I have a couple of chicks from this hatch that have splay leg, plus they're from the affected line so I will be giving them away as I mentioned in my reply to Ron. As long as they thrive I guess. I play it by ear from there.

 

[Wickedchicken6]

I'm sorry to read about everyone's difficult cases. They're always hard.

It's great to read of all the successful hatches!









To everyone who's won in the contests so far!!!

Tomorrow will be a read only day 'cause I'll be on my phone. Hopefully we get the bull we're going for tomorrow!