Well they've all hatched, but not without a bit of drama...lol. For one thing, I had one guy struggling most of the night, keeping me up to keep an eye on him. When I finally did go to bed, not quite an hour later, our some alarms went off (not sure why...think it's a battery). So now, wide awake, I went to check on my struggling chick and he'd popped out, so YAY!!!.
This morning, we woke up to another newly hatched chick with membrane caked and dried over his eye and one wing. My husband was able to soften the membrane with soft paper towels and remove it.
The last chick to hatch didn't look good right out of the egg. A bit more swollen in the naval area, but I figured it would be no biggie. We put him in the brood box and left for the day and came back and he was barely hanging on. We've given him some water with a pipette, segregated him from the others, closer to the heat lamp (we think he somehow managed to scramble to a cooler corner of the box, despite being unable to keep himself on his feet) and he's perked up a bit. But he still cannot stay upright. He flops over on his back. Looks like he's forcing himself backwards with his feet. No sense of balance it seems.
Not sure what to make of it. The other 7 are all doing fantastic. Eating, drinking and pooping. As expected.
