...is nerve wrecking, heartbreaking but ohh so rewarding
...finally on day 25..came Ginger, another golden buff chick with feathered legs...our chick #6, it was our second shrink wrapped one, it is strong and happy now, although tiny, since it is almost three whole days younger than the rest of the brood.
A few weeks ago one of our Buff Orpington ladies went broody. Broody means the hen is sitting on eggs for 21 days, sometimes they will stretch their legs, eat and use the restroom once a day, for a short while so the eggs don't get too chilled...and sometimes they won't leave the nest at all...literally starving for 21 days..it is very individual from hen to hen.
It amazes me how short of a time span it takes for a fertile egg to go from "egg" to hatched chick...14 days into the broody period we had a family of raccoons break into the coop and kill our broody momma hen and two others...in an effort to save the eggs I went out and purchased a Little Giant incubator...not the best maybe but I was determined to make it work...so we set it up on the counter, loaded it up with the 9 eggs from the nest plus three more from the two other hens that got killed...made sure the temperature was a constant 99.5 degrees and that the humidity was kept at about 45% or so...we also had to make sure the eggs were turned three times a day so the fetus' didn't get stuck in the shell....now the wait..
It was very hard to keep the temp. and humidity right...especially when our AC kicked on in the heat of the day or during the night...several mornings I woke up and temps. had spiked to 102 or dropped down to 95 degrees or humidity had dropped to a low 20%.....aaaggghh..so frustrating.
I finally stabilized everything by wrapping a beach towel around the base of the incubator...if temps. were kept too hot...fetuses could hatch too soon or even scramble, if they were too low it could prolong the incubation time...both could lead to deformities, something I was dreading as it would be hard for the kiddos to experience.
I finally stabilized everything by wrapping a beach towel around the base of the incubator...if temps. were kept too hot...fetuses could hatch too soon or even scramble, if they were too low it could prolong the incubation time...both could lead to deformities, something I was dreading as it would be hard for the kiddos to experience.
On day 18 you are supposed to go into "Lock down" mode...which means up the humidity to 75% and stop turning the eggs...all this so the chick could orient itself properly with its head and beak by the air sack that is always located by the fat end of the egg...and hopefully it can find its way out...
The first sign is a pip...a small crack or hole made by the chick so it can start breathing air.
...after the pip comes the zip...where the chick has by turning itself counter clockwise in a spiral type way...beaten its egg tooth in a zipper type fashion around the whole circumference of the egg...next it will push its head towards the fat end of the egg and hopefully the zipping was done all the way so the chick can hatch out completely..
If the humidity is too low the chick will "shrink wrap" into its own egg, which in turn suffocates it...we had two eggs do this so after lots of going back and forth of whether we should intervene and help..we finally helped them out...it is hard and very dangerous as the membrane that shrink wraps around the chick is full of all of its blood vessels so if done too roughly or hastily, instead of helping it you end up killing it instead...something I did not want to be part of..
This is Ginger, it was also helped out as it was a shrink wrapped little one..
This is Sugar Ray, he is absorbing his yolk to gain his strength lost during the ha
rd hatch..
rd hatch.. Our first egg hatched night between day 20 and day 21...M&M...blackish chick.
Our next one hatched on day 21, Lemonhead, a golden yellow chick.
Here is M&M and Lemonhead together..waiting to fluff up before they can go in the brooder..
The third hatched night between day 21 and day 22, a pale yellow chick with feathered legs, Sugar Ray...he was one of our shrink wrapped chicks..fought good though and is strong now. Our fourth chick hatched on day 22, Butterscotch, a very dark golden chick with feathered legs as well...and after it came Licorice, hatched out night between day 22 and day 23, our second blackish chick, our 5th chick
...finally on day 25..came Ginger, another golden buff chick with feathered legs...our chick #6, it was our second shrink wrapped one, it is strong and happy now, although tiny, since it is almost three whole days younger than the rest of the brood.
Out of the original 9 eggs two died early on and 1 before lock down...but we got 6 healthy strong chicks...not so bad considering the rough time we had of the raccoon killing the momma hen, me not getting the incubator right and two being shrink wrapped...