The verdict on my first hatch.

[TyrannosaurusChix]

I do love bay chicks... but this was an experience to say the least.

i had some sort of wacky problems with humidity that caused me to have to intervene with the eggs. very stressful, but id like to think i saved a lot of lives.


start with 30 eggs( 20 of mine, 10 of FILS)

out of his 10, 3 were not fertile.. 7 went into lockdown . Before i intervened two had already died via shrinkwrapping, one died while still absorbing yolk..

Ended up with 4 wonderful chicks out of 7 that entered lockdown.


Out of my 20 eggs, 1 wasn't fertile, and one was a double yolker that i shouldn't even have tried, that quit after about 7 days.

another one shouldn't have went into lockdown but i was hopeful. I think it dies day 16? it was a bantam egg that the father wasn't a bantam i believe.. so not much hope there , either... even though i really did hope.

So by my count out of 15 viable eggs at lockdown, one was still way underdeveloped but was still alive. it ended up dying before coming out of the shell.


Out of a grand total of 20 eggs, i got 15 babies that took 2 days of full labor.. longer than my own children. unfortunately my daughter accidentally killed one of the chicks by dropping it. I am left with 14 but 15 were successful hatches.


Grand total of living chicks after hatch( I'm counting the one my daughter accidentally killed as successful) plus my father in laws eggs

19/30 starting eggs.

19/27 fertile eggs.

 

[txmel]

that's pretty good

i just finished a hatch and only got 4 chicks out of 33 eggs. one chick died from yolk absorption issues, so only ended up with 3 chicks in the end. good job!

 

[LaurenM23]

Wow! Congrats on a great hatch!

I just went through my first and got 3 out of 18, only to have #3 pass on me after 14 hours! You should be super proud!!!

 

[TyrannosaurusChix]

well at least someone thinks it was a good hatch!! my grandmother who had chickens yrs ago said there shouldnt have been that much blood. i could have left the eggs alone but im just guessing i would have only had about 3 chicks if i hadnt took the air cel end of the shell off and watched them that way. The problem i ran into was that the chick wanted to come out too early, before the yolk was absorbed but a few were barely breathing due to shrinkwrapping and were breathing good after i took that part of the shell off and squirted water on teh membrane.


or maybe i could be wrong and caused a lot of mess for no reason? im still torn and feel sort of sad... but the 14 i have left are wonderful and cute!

 

[LaurenM23]

Everything I've read on BYC says that you really shouldn't "help". If they can't make it on their own, they weren't meant to. At the same time, if you can tell that something happened with the humidity, and are just chipping the ends to check on them, see the chick trying, and save it by starting it out a little, that makes good sense to me. It doesn't sound as if you literally peeled them all out, just gave them a head start.

I think it sounds like a great hatch, to me. I'm a newbie, though, so certain get the advice of those who know a whole lot more on the subject. Either way, congrats on the fuzzies!!!