Chicks and Incubator issues

Bah.

Last night, after I posted, Corey managed to fix my fan. YAY! But … then my heat element wouldn't work. I went into full panic mode. It's such an awesome incubator! Ouain! It's easy to use, easy to clean (ish) I can see everything. Such a disappointment. We worked on it till after midnight but I quit and went to bed.

Today Corey went and bought me a new incubator with an egg turner. EEek.

It's not what we like, but it will do! It's currently sitting in my room and it will run until the weekend when the eggs will go in. The eggs are here and I WAS a little disappointed not to get the specific eggs I had my heart on :( but after enquiring (maybe I don't know my eggs) she offered to save me some up for a second batch.

#donttellcorey

Hopefully these eggs do well in this new incubator, my last batch did so well considering they hatched out without difficulties.

In other news, when I got home today, we went to see the chicks and spotted a tiny hole. Yup. Down by one more chick. Down to 16. And Nikki's chick isn't doing much better, maybe even worse.

#totallysucky

On the upside I get to incubate more eggs?

I'll upload some more pictures soon.

Also, also - I last minute made Nikki some birthday invitations! OH YEAH! Birthday parties this year x 3 HHAHAAHA

May the odds be ever in my favor.

More Hard lessons

The hard lessons keep coming.

Today I received the tiny zip ties I had ordered. Super tiny, slightly unexpectedly tiny but perfect for my chicks.

Wait. Why do I bother banding them? Because the kids each have a 'chicken' and sometimes they look alike. Also, I band all my broodies so they get to live and hopefully brood another year.

Sidenote : So far my broodies from last year are not broody this year and I'm highly disappointed.

Anyways. As we were switching the elastics off (they were climbing up on the chicks and hurting their legs) and adding the zip ties, Nikki pulled far too hard on her chick's little elastic. I stopped her right away, cue the crying because I used a loud voice, and then I reminded her to be careful and we moved on. A little bit later, I noticed a chick not moving around much and it was Nikki's chick. After careful examination, (I picked it up and tried to make it walk), I realized it was injured.

On the upside, it wasn't peeping in pain or showing any pain when I moved it's leg so maybe it's just sore. I really hope so because Nikki is devastated that she hurt her little chick.

#Ionlywarnedher30timestobegentle, #shefeelsawful

We will check on it tomorrow. All the other chicks protested the new zip ties loudly, but once they were one they were all 'cuddle me!!!!!!!'. Pffffffffff.

In other news, I got a text today asking if I could meet to pick up my next batch of eggs tomorrow instead of Thursday. I will be at work but Corey will go in. I still don't intend to start incubating these ones until Sunday because I want to be home to watch them hatch and being at work while they hatch is just not going to work. There will be 32 eggs going into the incubator.

#coughcoughImsick.

So, today I got my incubator all set up for a test run again. I do this after I clean it and it has ample time to dry out and OH NO, my fan sounds funky! So it is currently running to see if the fan just sounds like that and I didn't realize how loud it was (because it sounds fine from where I'm sitting?) or if something is wrong with it, which is very possible that water got somewhere it shouldn't. If it isn't going to work I will be supremely disappointed. I'm not sure what I'll do with all those eggs.


#notgonnalie.  

April 2019 Hatchees

Our final count is an official 17 (well 18 if you count the one that was eaten by the kitty) :(

The roosters were Brahma X and Double Laced Silver Barnevelders.
The hens were Olive Eggers, Chocolate Ice Cream Bars, Silver Americaunas, Brahmas.

We already know that a silkie egg or two got in there because we have some silkie toes on some babies. I asked the 'breeder' if she could help me identify the crossbreeds and will add them here when I get them. 

Here are our chicks :

All black with fuzzy legs

Oh whoops. That black one should be in the other picture.
My bad. 

Orange face chicks, one is lighter colored.
That ones mine. I hope it's a hen!

The black chick has 5 toes and the white one
does not. They are unique and so are together. 

The one on the right is Speedy. These two are big chicks.
They also kept trying to escape. Okay. Not Speedy. He
had a nap. 

Brown chicks. Maybe Barnevelder?

The greys. I'm pretty sure the one on the right, is hatched from our egg.
He looks like a little Barred Rock rooster baby. 

White with grey spots. Also have 5 toes each.
Possible Silkie x. 

Chick Hatch - April 2019

I did post most of the details on facebook and Instagram but I'm going to blog about it too.

I also made a spreadsheet on excel so … that was super fun. 

I bought some eggs from a lady … er … I forget where she was from, but the eggs got to me via Corey and I let them set on my counter (actually in my room under the incubator because I was scared my MIL would accidentally wash and put them in the fridge.). After 24 hours I put them in my incubator, which had been running for two days to ensure temps and humidity were staying steady. I have an egg-turner which means I don't even have to turn them! I had gotten 28 eggs from her and added 4 of my own over the next day or so to fill the incubator. 32 eggs started to incubate. 

I knew I would not get 32 eggs to hatch, but I wanted to up the odds. The eggs I had purchased were breeds I don't have in my flock, except the Easter Egger but I was okay with that. The crosses are from a Dark Brahma Rooster and a Double Laced Silver Barnevelder. I was pretty excited about that, but honestly did not even look up the breeds until they started hatching and I noticed they had fluffy legs.

#whatshappening

By day 8 I had culled 5 with blood rings. I cracked them open to be sure. I know you might thing - ew what if there was a living chick in there. I needed to know. I candled them twice and saw no growth and didn't want to risk them exploding and destroying my other viable eggs. I also had two unsure ones and some too dark to really see into. 

#hellointhere?

By day 16, 7 eggs had been culled, one had quit around day 12 or so - a little dark brahma baby. Then at Lockdown one more definitely died. The blood ring was much clearer and I couldn't see veins, so away it went. The rest had noticeable movement or kinda noticeable in the dark ones. 

It was super hard to candle those dark eggs. I needed total silence. It helps me to see and with the kids around. Yeah, no. 

I planned the hatch to happen during our week off of school, but day 21 happened to be on the ONE DAY I had to work. My bad. 

Hatching started on day 19 with our first pip. I stressed about humidity and temp and I did not want to unstuck any chicks this year etc … but then later that day we had more pips, and then our first hatch. A huge chick that Nolan has since named Speedy. He was bulldozing the other eggs within an hour of being born. 

Once he had a little friend that was dry enough to go in the brooder, I moved the two of them over. Speedy was NOT happy with this arrangement and peeped until I finally put him back in the incubator. Once we had a few more hatch, we moved more to the brooder and they were so much happier - and also quieter. 

There was a nice steady rate of hatching starting the 20th day of incubation and then on their 21st day of hatching lots of them popped right out while I was at work. I came home to Corey telling me there was 9 chicks in the incubator running around.

Oh boy. 

So CUTE. There was some 'white' ones and brown ones and grey ones and ONE Barred rock baby rooster … which is fine because he can replace the Barred Rock Rooster I already have. 

ADORBS. 

There were a few stragglers and a few that died in the shell, reason unknown really. I'll have to google but I'm really not sure. They weren't shrink wrapped or sticky … hm. 18 chicks hatched happily from their eggs. One pipped and blood everywhere. I didn't count that one. Then one pipped right through the yolk and was 'helped out' but unfortunately, he didn't make it. His actual intestines would not stay in his little body. If he would have just stayed still so I could put a temporary little 'bandage' I think it would have survived. I made the very hard choice to cull the chick instead of letting it suffer. 

I still feel extremely awful about it but am definitely prepared for next time if it happens again. 

There is still one, random, olive green egg in there. We occasionally hear it peeping but if it doesn't hatch on it's own I've decided not to help. 

I've also tried to convince one of my hens to sit on eggs - not to get more chicks … but so I can shove 18 baby chicks under and she can raise them. LOL. 

Well, currently 17 because one got eaten by the cat but that's a different story. Well … maybe 18 again if the chick in the incubator hatches. 

Chick update!

I know, two posts in one morning. Super eager.

But who can resist baby chicks! Our first chick (from that previously pipped egg) was born the next day. He is now Nolan's chick - Speedy. He or she is actually very speedy. And also very big.

Scaly Leg Mites

Scaly leg mites are little 'bugs' that get under the chickens scales and cause pain, discomfort, raised scales and soreness. I noticed my chickens legs last year but I thought it was related to age. After noticing my younger chickens getting the same problem, I did some googling. Ugh. Scaly leg mites. At first I was really frustrated because a lot of suggestions were to use ivermectin but there was no answer as to how long the safe amount of time was before we could eat eggs again, nor if we could kill bird treated that way.

Of course, I found another way. Actually many other ways but I chose two and merged them together. First of all, I cleaned the coop as best as I could. (I need a coop facelift), then I had to catch every single bird and depending on the severity I either dipped their legs in vegetable oil or gasoline. Now, I know you are reading 'gasoline?' wtf!! But those infected were either going to be culled or this tried. Most of the chickens just stood in whichever solution I put them in. It was more of a quick dip, then were help while it dripped off, then I slathered Vaseline all over their legs.

This actually resulted in some very dirty looking birds for a while hahahaha.

My roosters were miserable jerks about it. All except three really. I was wondering how I would choose who to keep and who to cull. Welp. I ended up culling those miserable roosters just yesterday because I didn't want to fight them again to get them treated. It wasn't worth my injuries and I couldn't give them away with leg mites and I couldn't let them live here with leg mites while treating the rest. I warned them. One rooster was put down because he got hurt fighting the others and it was painful for me to work on his legs. Poor guy. So two roosters got to stay. My Barred Rock rooster and one of the Barnyward mixes (He's red with a white tail and white on his neck) They stood patiently and calmly while I treated them.

Also. The bantams didn't get treated because they sneak out of the barn in the morning. Their legs looked okay and they WILL get treated but that day they didn't.

My chickens have now been treated twice and I've already noticed a pretty big difference! They are also suddenly producing more eggs so those poor babies must have been in so much discomfort and pain. Awww! I feel bad but now I know.

Chickens!!

Well, it's a little overwhelming when I post on facebook about my chickens all the time. I mean my statuses get so long it's more like a blog post anyways, so here we are. Back at the blog page.

First, let's talk about what I have.

Currently, I have 42 (or 43) chickens. There are :

7 roosters (Barred Rock, Easter Egger and Barnyard Mix)

This is my Barred Rock Rooster

My hens are a variety of those breeds as well as some crosses of those breeds. Also. Two bantams - breed unknown - a white one and a black one. They might actually be roosters, I don't really know, since they don't lay eggs. Which is super rude by the way. 

Super rude bantams. They also don't stay in the coop when I tell them to.

We are also hatching out some eggs this year that aren't from the farm. It's always super exciting to do that. I started with 32 eggs but over the next 16 days, 8 didn't develop properly. We have 24 eggs with wriggling little chicks left in the incubator for lockdown. Today is day 20 and that means there should be some pipping and hatching over the next couple-3 days. I did have a couple of eggs from the farm I added in a day or two later.

Lockdown time!!!

Pipped Egg!