Thistlewick Smallholding - Chickens & Sheep (for now)

[thistlewick]

Are you able to see if there's still umbilical or unabsorbed yolk attached?

I wouldn't expect the humidity from the incubator to help much when it's that stuck, but I'd want to check it's "fully cooked" first before giving it a bath.

I ended up getting it out without much fuss - just qtips and warm water -- it was indeed fully cooked! It was just stuck in a TIGHT sac, also as I was telling Perris in the thread I made about it on the incubating and hatching forum here, there was some weird thick deposits INSIDE the egg sac, a large bit too -- it looked like very hard white meaty bits or very soft squishy calcium bits -- it was INSIDE the egg sac, next to the chick. Very weird.

But, it wanted to live, it was moving and peeping and pushing and trying, it seemed so relieved when I got it out of the sac.

I never, ever, thought I'd help a chick hatch -- I thought I would be pretty Darwin about it.

But seeing it alive and trying to live. I HAD to do something. I HAD to.

 

[thistlewick]

Here is the little sweet:

breathing strong, peeping loud when it peeps <3 hopefully it dries and stands and walks.


Will Tilly take it if I put it under her at night? Or will she suddenly see 4 and say NO!

 

[kattabelly]

there was some weird thick deposits INSIDE the egg sac, a large bit too -- it looked like very hard white meaty bits or very soft squishy calcium bits -- it was INSIDE the egg sac, next to the chick.

Did it look anything like this?

 

[thistlewick]

Did it look anything like this?
View attachment 4200309

Yes, but about four times that much - it was large, about a third of the shell, I'd say.

more news;


I went to check and it smelled and stank to high heaven, I opened the incubator to give the chick an ant's fart of nutri-drench and realized it was STICKY with yolk.

So I gave it a warm toasty bath, which it LOVED <3 (omg it was so cute) and the poor little thing is now back in the incubator.

This little one is a fighter, I gotta say.

 

[thistlewick]

Yeah, the chick died overnight in the incubator.. Not at all surprised. I think the yolk it was supposed to absorb got eaten.

This hatch has been very strange -- as the eggs that are laid are completely left alone.

I don't go gather until 3pm - they're basically all done by that time. I don't have early chickens, when I let them out at 8:00-8:30am, no one has laid but the duck lol So yeah, the 'egg eater' was only interested in these eggs.

MAYBE it was Tilly? MAYBE she knew which ones were right and which ones weren't??

 

[thistlewick]

We removed Cream to exile today - he was ambushing hens, and the real kicker was when I went to fill up the food bins today, he was pecking EVERYONE to get out of the way so HE could eat.

Nope. Bye. He went in the bachelor pen. Cracker's up!

 

[thistlewick]

Cracker is so chill I forget he's a Cockerel - he doesn't crow when we're around, he's the first Cockerel to do that. He doesn't just 'show up' when I do chicken chores, either - he stays with the hens in the hedge. He doesn't 'mind' me being around.

I got a video yesterday of him taking several hens back to the hen house midday, they were following him - so this is all looking much better so far.

He is an Olive Egger Cockerel (being EExMaran cross, Sophia is his mama, Chuck his papa) so if we wanted to hatch his babies, I'd hope he'd get on some of our Marans to make some nice dark olive eggs, possibly. But as it stands now we have too many chickens and we won't be adding more.

There is definitely a hidden nest somewhere, because while Tilly has a reason not to lay, I'm seeing maybe 1 other Maran egg 2x a week. I have at least 2 laying Marans. Hmm.

These chicks are dingydarn adorable, the chocolate chick is there by the yellow one - great camo color. Tilly and Ginger are freakin unbelievable moms. Just excellent. I love that they have co-brooded twice <3

My darling lollipops - my husband got this pic, who are all the chummiest sweetbombs. Ruby and Cocoa sleep out in the outside part of the hen house, so they are a little bit of outcasts but during the day they all hang together.

These guys though, they are 13/14 weeks old (I lose track) and they only JUST are starting to forage. Absolute wastrels LOL