WooHoo!

[Moonwalker]

SO far I've got 20 out of 58 hatched and running around healthy and several more pips!

 

[speckledhen]

Congrats! Looks like you and I have about the same size hatch. I have 60 eggs, 49 due in three days and 11 due in a week. Hope we both have a great one!

 

[Moonwalker]

I had set 60 in this batch and when we moved them down to the hatching tray, there were 2 that had cracks. There is another tray that was set about 10 days after the first, so I will have little biddies running out my ears again!
(between my boss and the people that work on my days off, they have reduced the original 106 leghorns to about 40)
I pitched a fit and threatened to chop off fingers if anybody changed ANYTHING on the bator. Nobody did and gee, they are actually hatching this time! So now I am laying down the law about how these are to be fed and cared for.
I get 3 days in a row off and apparently, on those days, someone would toss a single scoop (regular horse feed scoop, about the same as a 3 lbs coffee can) in the pen. They were starving to death! That little bit for around 75 2 month old chicks! I had 3 die yesterday and 5 more were dead when I came in today. There was absolutely NO meat on these birds. I'm guessing they were the weaker ones that got pushed out of what little feed they were getting.
The first losses were when they were first put out in the big brooder cage we use for "tweens". Someone decided that even though Suzi said to keep all 3 heat lamps on, that they only needed 2 (106 month olds) so, they all piled up and 25 or so died. Several drowned when it was decided
(on my day off again) that it was too much trouble to fill 3 waterers every day so they but a big horse feed tub (4" deep x 18" diameter)
So when I came in Friday they had moved them to a larger pen and I found a soggy mass of wet, muddy bedraggled birds, I pitched a fit and we got the pen cleaned out, put in roosts and I rigged a feeder with a spout, so all the lazy b_ _ _ _ _s have to do is pour it in the funnel and it goes right into the feeder tray. I also told everyone EXACTLY how much of what kinds of feed to put in it. These are the same idiots that were feeding 2 adult emus maybe one scoop of corn a day this winter. I told them that they need AT LEAST a full scoop EACH! And a mix, not just corn. (these are penned birds that had nothing growing in the pen during the winter) Very large pen, just nothing growing during cold weather to supplement what we were feeding them. They could not understand why if they eat grass and other green plants, they couldn't eat from the bale of hay that is there for the goats and pony.
Sorry, this has turned into a vent, but I had to tell someone or seriously damage several someones!

 

[speckledhen]

I dont trust anyone but my husband to care for my birds and that's exactly why! Yep, some fingers need to be removed, I agree! And heads should roll!