What's wrong with their feathers?

[heritagehabitatfarms]

cool !!! u can work on lav now lol...

I am so excited! My broody just hatched a black chick! It's the first one I've gotten so far and I'm really really hoping it is silkied!

 

[kahlua]

Was just writing a PM back but any advice would be welcome!!
I read on this forum to incubate shipped eggs w/o turning for the first week to allow air cells to heal. I can't find the thread - but it was a long one, I thought I'd give it a try with the project eggs to give them the best chance. I would love to give it another shot though and try turning them from day 1. Or I'll be left wondering if it was the shipping or the lack of turning that caused so many to quit! When I candled them before putting them in the incubator they didn't look too bad, I only saw a few with air cells floating around, but when I candled after a week, it was clearer that a lot of the air cells were detached Some seemed to heal but still had the air cell running down the sides - others were still floating around loose.
My temps were good, within .5 degrees of 99.5 the whole time, I started out with humidity low (around 30%) but when I candled at a week some of the air cells looked HUGE so I did increase humidity and tried to keep it around 40-45%.
A lot of the eggs quit by day 7 - one I cracked open had a crossed beak and quit at about day 18ish, the other (4?) eggs that were in lockdown are still in my bator, today was day 26, I wanted to give them that long just in case, but don't know if I have the heart to crack them open. Maybe I will get my husband to do it...

I hope I'm not forgetting anything...but would love some input from others who have hatched these eggs!

I managed to find the thread about not turning shipped eggs...
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/641760/settling-shipped-eggs-necessary-with-auto-turner

 

[chick-among-us]

I got birds AND eggs from Kim...(Catkai) Granted they were not shipped as I was able to pick them up from her directly but they did have to ride a while! so were subjected to vibration.... I turned mine (after I did rest them for a day) then set all of them..I would have to check about how many eggs it was but I am here to tell ya the hatch rate was great and I'm LITERALLY overrun with chicks...I got her gorgeous beautific blue am's AND fluffy eggs...I think I ended up with something like 11 FLUFFIES they seem to be everywhere... and that isnt even including the blue am's that are all of course black,blue and splash....ALL the chicks including the fluffies are very healthy with the exception of a few here and there that needed "infirmary care' meaning they get something like "fading puppy syndrome" which will kill puppies, it will birds too. it is simply a need for sugar.
All I do is pop them in the infirmary bucket with a heat source and then give them a concoction of reg sugar mixed with poly-visol drops.(no iron) and sometimes nutra-drench alternated and baby parrot food I (knock on wood) rarely loose these "fading" chicks.. they will just progressivly get sicker and die without this help and with it, will recover just fine...all breeds of babies seem to do this though not just the fluffies...one of Kims babies went into the infirmary and I had another hatch and a couple of them got popped in there with her...well she has become the nanny for them...so when they were all well I have to keep them all together or they scream the place down for thier fluffy "mom" its funny to see her...she is bigger and fluffier of course and she has her crazy hair do and with chicks riding on her back,oh I just love watching them...she is so patient and cuddles them and they all stay together...so adorable.
Babies that stand alone fluffed up and not eating or drinking or preening get this treatment and it WORKS....sugar fixes almost all of these issues...think about it when you stop (for whatever reason) eating or drinking...then you get weak your gloucose levels drop then you cant muster the energy to feed or look for the feeder or waterer....you get progressivly weaker....you fade. So around here it is just a fading chick...we make them better..
I mention the fading babies, since these chicks seemed (for me) to do this,not more than any other breed, its just that they are a bit more precious in the "project" and this helps to save them if there is issues... We lost a few fluffies at first but it was issues here not of Kims birds...ALL of her babies are VERY robust and hatched great! I never helped them, never had to they hatch fine on thier own and also seemed very healthy from the first..I to use the dry hatch method and turned my eggs from day 1 of incubation
NOTE: our broody hatched 10 out of 10 shipped eggs...wonky air cells and all....not one baby didnt hatch...it was amazing...just saying

if you happen to have one laying around

Was just writing a PM back but any advice would be welcome!!
I read on this forum to incubate shipped eggs w/o turning for the first week to allow air cells to heal. I can't find the thread - but it was a long one, I thought I'd give it a try with the project eggs to give them the best chance. I would love to give it another shot though and try turning them from day 1. Or I'll be left wondering if it was the shipping or the lack of turning that caused so many to quit! When I candled them before putting them in the incubator they didn't look too bad, I only saw a few with air cells floating around, but when I candled after a week, it was clearer that a lot of the air cells were detached Some seemed to heal but still had the air cell running down the sides - others were still floating around loose.
My temps were good, within .5 degrees of 99.5 the whole time, I started out with humidity low (around 30%) but when I candled at a week some of the air cells looked HUGE so I did increase humidity and tried to keep it around 40-45%.
A lot of the eggs quit by day 7 - one I cracked open had a crossed beak and quit at about day 18ish, the other (4?) eggs that were in lockdown are still in my bator, today was day 26, I wanted to give them that long just in case, but don't know if I have the heart to crack them open. Maybe I will get my husband to do it...

I hope I'm not forgetting anything...but would love some input from others who have hatched these eggs!

I managed to find the thread about not turning shipped eggs...
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/641760/settling-shipped-eggs-necessary-with-auto-turner

 

[kahlua]

Thanks - with the fading chicks, once you get them over that initial "hump," are they usually okay? My guy is 6 days old now and looks to be doing well but I am watching him really closely! He's not growing quite as quickly as my other chicks, but I guess that is to be expected since he had a rough couple of days. But he is very perky and is looking fine.
I wish I had a broody - I do have a few young silkies so maybe one day!

And he is looking silkied - so I am really happy. Now hopefully "he" is really a "he!" LOL

I did crack the ones that didn't hatch - the chicks had their heads under their wings, but the yolks were still present, one still had a lot of amniotic fluid. So looks like day 17-18 they quit?

I am hoping to get some nice quality chicks from a poultry show in 2.5 weeks, so maybe I will have some eggs to share with everyone, eventually.

 

[jeremy]

cool !!! u can work on lav now lol...

You could work towards a Lav Silkied bird by using Blue (and even Splash Silkied) birds, too...

 

[NicoleRM]

You could work towards a Lav Silkied bird by using Blue (and even Splash Silkied) birds, too...

True, but then you have to deal with two dilution genes at once and don't want to do that. It was hard enough to tell the chicks apart when I mixed them up by accident once LOL!

I ended up with two black chicks out of the broody's clutch, and at least one is definitely silkied!

 

[jeremy]

As long as you kept good breeding records there should be very little confusion as to what bird is what color and what bird is recessively carrying the Lav gene. Working with the 2 genes would be the same as if you were working with Black and Lav. Blue does not "react" any differently to the Lav gene.

 

[jeremy]

Either way, congrats on your new Black chicks, Black Fluffies should be absolutely beautiful.

 

[PoultryQueen29]

Hey everyone! I saw this thread about 6 months ago and immediately wanted one but I didn't have room for another chicken. I was wondering if anyone has a pullet for sale 5 months or older. Please PM me if you have one!

 

[Indigosands]

I NEED some of these! Can we get a list of the members that sell eggs/chicks?