MAY 2016 "Land of the Free Because of the brave!" Hatch-a-Long Hosted by, Mike & Sally

Well, I'm happy with the chicks I managed to hatch... and yet I'm totally bummed at the same time. The last two batches yielded an average of 22% hatch rate. 13 chicks out of 60 eggs, with a price tag of $165, figures to $12.69 per chick. These chicks need to be killer birds when they grow up...
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So sorry!
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Help I need your help !!! I had a duckling hatch 2 days early it still has a marble size yolk sac attached and is still attached to shell...duckling is starting to wake up. Will it be able to absorb that yolk sac? Do you know how long? I am worried it looks healthy.
TIA!!
Anna
 
Help I need your help !!! I had a duckling hatch 2 days early it still has a marble size yolk sac attached and is still attached to shell...duckling is starting to wake up. Will it be able to absorb that yolk sac? Do you know how long? I am worried it looks healthy.
TIA!!
Anna


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That's Cupcake, a welsh harlequin duckling that jumped the gun and tried to hatch before her yolk was absorbed at all. What I did was cut the corner off a Ziploc bag, push her back into her shell, wrapped a wet paper towel around the shell to provide moisture, and put the whole thing in the bag. I pulled her head through the corner of the bag, and voila! Everything stays moist, she can't pull away from the yolk too early, and the next day, she was good to go.

Is what you're seeing definitely yolk though or could it just be embryonic waste?
 
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I posted this in the emergency section but I thought I'd add it here incase some of you might know what to do.

One of our 4 week old serama chicks isn't walking. This has been going on for about 5 days now. She is the only one that acts like this. I figured she had botulism because I examined their chick starter and it had mold growth in it. I also found some bright green poop in the bedding. I cleaned out the brooder and got new feed. She eats and drinks well and walks to the food and water when I refill them. She is unstable and shakes.
I feed her boiled egg every morning and they get medicated chick starter during the day. I have tried dissolving vitamin b12 tablets in the water. I also tried vitamin electrolyte mix that has riboflavin. She isn't worse, but she isn't better. Will she ever walk again? Should I do therapy with her? If so, how do I do that?
I have been handling her a lot keeping her away from the others. I noticed that I haven't seen her poop.
Any suggestions would be appreciated! Thank you!
Update on Sunny.
She started walking today! It was like a light switch turned on. Before she would just shuffle around back and forth to the food and then just sit all day. I've been giving her vitamins in her water and she eats eggs everyday as an extra treat. I am so glad I finally see some improvement! It's been a long few weeks!
 
Hey all update on my hatch-es lol

Okay well it's been a crazy week following a crazy emotional week last week too.

Ugh okay so the run down is as follows(Forgive me if there are repeats as I have forgotten what I've mentioned and haven't mentioned.)

Last week after discovering the week before, maybe longer I don't remember, that the fan wasn't working properly in our styrobator DH2B installed a spare computer fan from our coolerbator build while we collected eggs fertilized by our lf slw rooster, Twitch, that was taken by a predator.

We gathered and gathered and on the 20th put the oldest eggs then 10 days old into the styrobator with 27 other eggs that were staggered, having been set the 3rd and the 6th.

Some of you may remember the week before this last miraculously we hatched out three chicks from eggs devastated by our broken fan with temps being unsteady and reaching up to 113 and also getting low. None of the eggs lost enough moisture I don't think. Well two of the chicks hatched out okay and one hatched with wry neck(they were all late). We began treatment on the little wry necked chick and on its slthird day of life it began to show improvement. But that evening it died mysteriously seeming to have aspirated hours after being syringe fed. Upright with its neck straight and with no explanation for what caused it. It was in a padded container in the incubator for its safety. There was a fourth egg in the incubator that was nearly ready when it too died that night almost free from its egg. The other two chicks are healthy and thriving.

A week ago today, a teacher brought me the chicks that she hatched with her class from our eggs. They got 14 chicks out of 18 eggs
3 slw
3 EE
4 slw/black 50% English orp mixes
4 slw/buff orp mixes

Our eggs that were set on the 3rd hatched this week, I haven't looked through to see what all is what yet but 24 eggs went into lockdown 22 hatched and 2 were dead in shell. However we had to put down two chicks from this last week.

One hatched during the night and somehow managed to climb into our computer fan before I got up. The incubator was a gory mess and I was devastated, the silkie mix, shouldn't have been able to get into it. The wounds though seemed superficial and the chick seemed strong but we nearly 24 hours later found her seemingly comatose. We believe there may have been unknown internal damage. She had cuts on her head and neck, her left wing and her right foot. Her top beak was also damaged, and her right foot also had cuts. Our fan isn't run very fast being a 9 volt cord but she obviously was just too tender. Many of the injuries were just scrapes and pulled down. It was truly heartbreaking and we made the tough decision to humanely put her down. I had researched it when we first found her but we(my mother is a nurse and rushed over to help) decided given her original fight to give her a chance, of course we wouldn't have had we known something internal was involved. We decided to go with the vinegar and baking soda method and DH2B kicked the both of us out and gave her peace. This having been our first instant of having to do this, plainly, it sucked. I'm grateful DH2B did it though I know it was distasteful for him to do it. It was fast and peaceful.

We quickly wiped up the worst of the blood in the incubator and watched many more chicks hatch. That night we found there were two dead in shells and three more chicks just pipped. We went to bed.

I woke at 6 to a horrific scene. The incubator was once again covered in blood but much worse than the previous morning and there were two chicks out. I just about had a heart attack, had another little one gotten into the now completely covered and blocked off fan?! I pick up the chick nearest to the fan and looked it over. It looked really good if it's belly wasn't 100% sealed I couldn't imagine all that blood coming from that chick. The other chick still seemed to be sitting in the egg it hatched from and was soaking. I moved the first chick to the brooder(humidity was up to 70% with two wet chicks in there and barely fell when I grabbed it) and came back to check to see if the second was still attached to its egg. When I got back to pick the baby up there it was a yolk sac hanging out as the chick dragged it acrossed the bator. The yolk sac was clearly ruptured and then I know that the brownish red blood that coated the incubator had come from this chick. Judging by its egg shell it had ruptured the yolk before coming out of the egg. I couldn't believe this baby was alive. I placed it and it's yolk in warm wet paper towels in a container in the incubator to see if it could absorb the yolk. It didnt and at lunch time we took another look, the three of us together, we decided to cut the yolk free and try to save the chick. Only when we got all the lights on and readied all the equipment did we see hiding under the umbilical were intestines sticking out and the navel had closed cutting off circulation. The chick was not well and we made the hard choice again. That little baby also went quickly and peacefully.

We used a vacuum seal container to put the chicks down(with a smaller dish inside, however we flip flopped it the larger container was used for the vinegar mixture while the chick was dry in the other container aurounded by the mix) and it took maybe 10-20 seconds each time, I wasn't in the room but I spoke to DH2B and neither chick struggled or suffered just laid down and went to sleep.

I'm curious how everyone else culls chicks if needed.

All in all 20/24 into lockdown is pretty good but it was hard having to put those two down and we feel guilty about the fan in spite of having believe it was chick proof it is now double guarded and a third layer is yet to be added.

The three eggs set on the 6th are doing well, due today, and one EE is already out. There is another EE internally pipped and an ISA brown egg externally pipped.

The incubator also has quite a few eggs that we set on the 20th all seem to be doing well. Though many had to be carefully wiped clean of the egg yolk blood turned glue mixture.

We also set 104 eggs in the coolerbator this evening ranging from being layed today to being two weeks old. Most are 10 days or less.
 
Update on Sunny. She started walking today! It was like a light switch turned on. Before she would just shuffle around back and forth to the food and then just sit all day. I've been giving her vitamins in her water and she eats eggs everyday as an extra treat. I am so glad I finally see some improvement! It's been a long few weeks!
Beautiful bird!! @chickendreams24 So sorry!!!! :hugs :hugs
 
On day 19, no visible action yet. I keep talking to them watching for egg movement. Come on eggies, you can do it.
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Five pipped this morning
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Four Ameracauna/Barred Rock/Australorp mix, one Lavender Orpington.
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Today is Day 6 here and I candled again to look for air cells - YAY! I finally can see air cells in my Olive Eggs. I can't see much else - they are VERY DARK. I know that one has a saddle air cell, but they can hatch from that still right? I tossed one egg, so I still have 8 eggs in my 7 egg capacity brinsea! LOL I can only turn them about three times a day (due to my work schedule) so I hope that doesn't affect them too much. They go about 10 hours during the day without being turned, but I turn them as soon as I walk in the door. I hope I can put the auto turner in soon (if any eggs don't show progress by day 10 I will take them out and then have space for auto turner).

One other question, one of my Lavender Orpington eggs, which I can see into just fine), only has one tiny little vein, should I give it a few more days and see if it keeps developing or do you think it's an early quitter?
Keep um in there yet! go babies!!!

Unforunatly both of the chicks passed
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oh shah I am sorry sweetie!

It's been a busy week and I've fallen behind trying to keep up with all my subscribed threads. Our broody EE hens hatched lots of adorable fluffy chicks. I'm not quite sure exactly how many but roughly 15 little black EE/ Marans mix chicks.

These two hens are sisters from the same hatch and same parents. They go broody and raise chicks together each year.

My silkie chicks have started hatching in the incubator. We have 2 little early birds that hatched this morning, day 20. 1 blue and 1 splash.
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cuties!!!!!
 

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