Hatching.....Very Frought

[julesapple]

Our hatching eggs in the incubator are hatching/pipping now.

It's very frought though, I'm finding it quite stressful. Kittens are much easier!

We have three Cuckoo Marans eggs, one pipped, then hatched but he hadn't absorbed his yolk sack. We did our best to give him a fighting chance, but lost him very early this morning. He'd dried out and fluffed up and was looking really bright, but it wasn't to be. I know all our males will be dispatched at one point, but we feel we've let this wee chap down even though we did everything we could.

One of our Frizzle banties had pipped, made a huge hole in it's shell, but then died before hatching completely. We've no idea why this happened, but I'm left wondering if we may have been able to help it had our attention not been focused on the poorly marans chick.

So we're down to 5 chicks, 5 pipping eggs and four still to do anything (so far) out of 18 put into the incubator (two didn't gestate properly so we took them away) three weeks ago.

Jules

[Polly Fouracre]

Sorry to hear of your disappointment, hope the rest all hatch successfully. Hatching eggs in an incubator is fun but, as you say, always a bit stressful, even when you've been doing it for years!

[RichmondHens]

As Polly says, the excitement and anxiety never go away, even when you done it hundreds of times. But that's half the fun of it!

Good luck with the rest of the hatching.

[Nicos]

Good luck with the rest- yes, it is both stressful and exciting isn't it?
The temptation to interfer is amazing isn't it??
We too lost one of our Marans chicks when it was partially hatched. We opened up the shell afterwards and all looked perfectly fine. Such a pity.

Fingers crossed for them

[Glutton4...]

Please don't talk about hatching suspense - I've got four weeks to go with my broody Goose. Yesterday, she decided she's not so broody. So I shut her in!

Good luck with them, by the way!

[julesapple]

We've lost four so far, out of the 16.

One hatched perfectly, took a huge breath and dropped dead. We cannot think for the lives of us, why that happened. Another one, we think, was totally exhausted and had no energy left after hatching. The last one nearly hatched but then suffocated as it was completely cyanosed.

We haven't helped them in any way, apart from the wee Marans we lost, and I'm beginning to wonder if we should have.

We've got four eggs that haven't done anything yet. The candler doesn't show movement and there are no sounds coming from the eggs. How long should we give them?

The DD and I are stressed to all get out now.

Jules

[RichmondHens]

99% of the time you shouldn't need to help chicks out. Some take longer than others but if they are healthy enough they make it in the end. I do intervene sometimes, but only when the chick inside the egg is kicking and screaming vigorously which is an indication that he is definitely wanting out but maybe the shell or membrane is too tough, so needs a bit of help. Anything just making the odd feeble peep is probably to weak to be worth it.

I'm sorry to hear about your chicks. Three dead ones suggests sub standard eggs laid by poor parent birds (in-bred or unhealthy) - where did the eggs come from? Can you complain to the seller?

Give the others a bit longer, but if there is no sign of life (which day are you on now?) then it doesn't sound hopeful.

Sorry Jules, what a disappointment.

[julesapple]

Really wrung out this morning, DD & I look like chewed string.

Looks like our final number will be seven live ones out of 18 eggs. We had four unpipped eggs last night and have candled them and are now left with one. It's Day 23 today - we think. We don't know how fresh these eggs were when they arrived through the post, then we had a power cut for several hours so it could well be Day 22 or 24, but as the other all pipped/hatched at the right time I'm thinking it's definitely Day 23. My LF eggs came from a reputable breeder, DD's free Sablepoot & Frizzle Poland eggs came from Preloved.

One of our Light Sussex chicks is completely dried out, looks properly developed, but isn't standing yet. It's a very fat chick so we'll give it a few days to get it's landlegs. The others are just too cute!

I was awake for most of last night and the only thing I can think of for the deaths of all but one of the 5 we lost was incorrect humidity. I've now put the hydrometer (that we use to test the kitchen atmosphere before chocolate tempering) into the incubator to check that it is at the 75% it's set for. We'll see what that says. I do think that most of the dead chicks were too dry and exhausted, although one of the unpipped eggs looked like the chick had drowned when we broke into it ourselves after checkinmg for signs of life.

DD was insistant that 60% humidity was enough and and more would drown them. I didn't know enough about it but feel, with hindsight, I should have checked up. DD has gone into a tough exam this morning trying to deal with her guilt and I'm here trying to drown mine in coffee. It's ok to learn by your experiences but not when there were wee lives at stake.

Not sure if I want to try again, although DD does. This is possibly to make up for our mistakes.


Anyway, we have one Cockoo Marans, two Light Sussex, one Speckled Sussex, one Poland Frizzle Bantam and two lemon Sablepoot Bantams.

Jules

[Polly Fouracre]

It's only by trying again and keeping going that you learn how things happen. Clean out your incubator, get some more eggs and try again. Is there somewhere fairly near you where you can pick up some fresh eggs? What sort of incubator do you have?

[RichmondHens]

Agree with Polly, it's all about learning. Either fill up the incubator again or get a broody hen. And don't sit up watching them all night - GO TO BED! What will be will be. Even if I have one struggling I have learned to say "well it's got two chances" and leave it alone till morning.

[julesapple]

I didn't sit up all night, I just couldn't sleep for going over & over everything in my head.

We've got a brand new Brinsea Octogon 20 Advance incy. I've had a look on t'interweb this morning for egg suppliers within a reasonable distance and found a few. We don't mind travelling, just don't want to disturb the eggs more than can be helped.

Has anyone had good success rates with eBay eggs? I quite fancy some of the more unusual breeds.

Thank you all for your words of steadiness and calm, all very much appreciated.

Jules

[kentish girl]

Mine were ebay eggs & we only got 4 hatched out of 12

[its hilly]

Jules, sorry to hear you've had such a worrying time. Don't let it put you off though.
As for humidity, my first 2 hatches I had up to 70% at hatching, and didnt do well. BP advised me to drop it, so this time I kept it around 40/45% until the last 3 days then went to 60%. And did MUCH better. My first two hatches I checked the unhatched eggs and had a lot of fully grown chicks that hadn't pipped. I now know that (and feel so guilty about) they drowned in their shells. This last lot however I had only 1 fully developed chick that didn't hatch.
I've had varied results with ebay eggs. Some almost all hatched/fertile, some only 1 out of 6 fertile. One lot with no fertility at all. Also I've had some that were supposed to be a specific breed but weren't, but are still lovey peeps. On the other hand some really nice buff cochins and Silver Sussex. And some white leghorns from a guy who said he showed them, and boy they were superb, but sadly were too young to manage in my icy cold buildings in feb and had to be given to someone with cosier quarters.
TBH if you want rare breeds I'd try asking breeders at your local agricultural shows first to see if you can get them localish. At least then you can see the stock and know that they are what they are supposed to be.

[julesapple]

Had to dispatch one of our hatchlings last night.

He didn't stand up after hatching, so we gave him 24 hours. By this time we'd discovered that he had a definite leg problem. We tried Nicos' advice in the sticky post and splinted his legs and he really seemed to be making progress although his 'knee' joints were inflamed. I say 'he' but we don't know for sure.

Last night DD was changing his little splints, and took off the protective padding around his sore knees to find that the bone had broken and was poking through the skin completely. Oddly, there wasn't any blood at all as you'd expect, so there was serious deformity in there.

Anyway, DD didn't hesitate and dispatched him quickly and cleanly as he was obviously in a lot of pain. I think she was incredibly brave, but she was very upset. Dealing with this chick and helping him over the past week meant that DD was very attached to him.

We're hoping to take a trip to South Yeo Farm near Okehampton to get some hatching eggs to put under our broody Dumpy, and possibly some day olds to pop in with our other chicks.

Jules

And I've realised that we were so frought we couldn't spell and we should've been fraught

[Nicos]

Aww...well done for trying-glad to be of help!

My chick- yup, a male is fine now running round like normal- so the splinting for you would certainly have worked if it had been a simple problem.

Ah well- at least we get to eat ours

- your DD will certainly be very confident with her splinting if needed again some time in the future!





( dare I ask if it was fed on to one of her raptors???)