New hatch going on now.

So the hatch on the Lavander Orps has started. There is one baby in the incubator now, completely hatched out and almost dry. But there are no more pips right now. So it is just wait and see. Saturday is day 21 but just like on my last hatch I have one out early. I really hope most of those other eggs hatch!

It was funny when I came into the room this morning I thought at first the older chicks were the ones peeping like the always do. Well, yes, they were but the little guy in the incubator was peeping too so I guess they are calling to each other.

Whooo Hooooo!! Photos ---Photos!!!!

I was wrong about the no more pips. I looked more carefully using the flashight to shine in there and eggs are pipping. Three more. One of which is one of the three iffy eggs. I had candeled before lockdown and I could see that four were very good. Three I thought were iffy. I marked those. One of the iffy ones is pipping so it goes to should you I what I know. HA! When my hatch is done I will take pictures of them.

I am also going to take pictures and post later of the older chicks on their picture thread.

Of course I need the chick TV tank for the new guys. So yesterday I had gone to Target, got a nice (as big as I could find) plastic storage unit that was the clear kind. Any of the ones I had were the solid color plastic. Then while I was out I went to agway and bought two bags of the pelleted horse bedding. It comes in 40 pound bags and I thought it was cheap at $5.49 a bag. Today I set up the older chicks in there new diggs. I used the pettet horse bedding as their new bedding. Then I also gave them a little bowl of sand as they were eating on their paper towel bedding, shredding it and eating it. I figgure they could use some grit.

So now I cleaned the aquarium and I am fixing it up now for the new guys.

Opps, I just looked and another chick completely zipped and is resting with its head out. Should get out of the egg completely really soon.

So EGGGGciting!!! I never tire of it! Keep the good news acoming!

Yikes, there are three chicks. I don't know how the third one snuck out so quickly.

Wow, one of the chicks is soooo much lighter than the others.

Once they start Pipping its like Jack in the Box!!! LOL!!

Wow! Great news. It sounds like a really good hatch.

yeah!!!!!! I am happy for you

Still wating for more chicks.

I had one made a big hole one side of the egg. Could see it breathing and hear it peeping but nothing more for at least five hours. I opened the egg for it and sure enough it was stuck alittle to the membrane and could not move around. I fixed it so it can just slip the egg shell off and hear it peeping in there. I know keeping up the humidity is very impostant so I strayed the remaining eggs lightly and the humidity went way up (61%). I have one egg with what looks like the start of a pip and two eggs doing nothing. The doing nothing ones are from the eggs I had marked iffy as I was not sure of them.

The othyer three guys are dry so I took them out and put them in the aquarium. They just went right back to sleep. Poor things are tuckered out LOL! I can't believe how small they look compaired to the two week old chicks in the new brooder next to them.

Congrats on the new hatch! Shouldn't you have another batch of hatching eggs being delivered any day now? It would be a shame for your incubator to go unused. Besides, this is just to darned exciting!

The Genesis has not ben turned off since I first started it to get ready for the chicks that are now two weeks. I suppose I should turn it off now as there is nothing in there.

So I now have 6 chicks hatched. I think that last egg might not hatch but its still in the incubators just in case. The one I had helped out of the egg jjust laid there for hours and hours and I let it rest. Finially it ended up being able to get up but it had a big piece of the shell stuck on its back still. I gently peeled that off and washed of peices of stuck membrane it had on it in various places. This chick for sure would never have gotton out of the egg without my help. The last two hatchlings I just took out of the incubator are a silver color. Can't really tell what color the last stuck one is, it looks dark to me. But it is still in the incubator as it still needs to dry off after my getting it wet from washing. Looks like this hatch will be 6 chicks. They really are little butterball cutiepies.

congrats Rita

Thanks. This is a much more successful hatch for me than the first time around.

The one still in the incubator is drying and looks to be a darker lavander. Could still look much lighter by the time it dries for all I know. I do have the two blacks. One looks different from the other as it has much more white around its face. The other guy has a dark face. They are such cuties.

So I decided to give the littlest guy some gateraid by eye dropper as I have not been able to get it too drink. It is small and skinny compaired to the others. Needed a lot of patience to feed it just a partial drop at a time. Gateraid has the electrolyles and sugar which I figgure would be good for energy. It needs some help. Its just had such a time as was the one stuck that I had to help out.

I hope all goes well with your new babies!
I went and did it again today at our Atlanta Poultry Swap/Meetup...won as doorprize a Welsummer Pullet(Yaay!) and bought a two weekold white Cochin banty.... and traded for 6 EE Eggies! ...... (sigh) ... Incu plugged in again! I promised Myself no more babies for the Winter LOL!!!!

Great doorprize! Winter babies are good because they would lay eggs by spring.

My little one is still not up to par. Small because it is so skinny. I think it wants to eat but it just doesn't have the idea. I have not seen it eat or drink. I don't know how I can make it catch on either.

I opened the last egg that did not hatch. A fully formed dead chick. No idea why it did not pip.

Rita, try ZZ's famous chick recipe - boiled egg yolk, smash some of it and mix with a tiny bit of water, use an eye dropper to feed the baby a few drops at a time. Works great.

Ok, I am off to boil an egg. Thanks.

Same problem. If its runny enough that it is liquid it will swallow as I put tiny droplets at the side of its mouth. But any pieces of egg I put on its beak are ignorned. It will not open its mouth and shallow them. I just finished feeding it and put it back in its house with the others and its peeping like mad. Maybe it is still hungry.

keep trying to feed it about every 30 minutes if you have the time

I have time. I work from home so am almost always home. I keep feeding it but it just looks so pathetic to me. Sorryful little thing. Problem is that it got a bad start. I think if it could just get over this it would be fine. But thats the thing. It just doesn't seem to be able to catch on to what it needs to do to be a chicken.

Hmmmm, sounds to me like its time to get out the wash cloth blankie and sing a lullabye time!! Some times these little ones need special attention. Maybe this one needs rocking and a-holdin!

It drinks when I feed it. Again no eating of solids. Its peeping softly now that I put it back. Not the loud loud insistant peeping it was doing last time. Its gonna have to be happy with being in there with the rest of the chicks. I will try and help by feeding it but thats as far as I go.

I used to feed newborn grass finches and those things are so tiny. The size of a bug when born. Need to eat every two hours. But they are easy in that they gape with their mouths open to be feed. Just tap the side of the beak with the eye dropper and insert into mouth and fill up crop. Only took afew seconds to actually do. This is much harder as chicks won't gape and open mouth. So Little droplets at the side of the beak and very carefully with much patience.

It just requires patience to get it to swallow the liquid. I have raised so many different types of animals even bottle fed puppies. Hand raised birds. So I can do simple things.

It actually pecked at the eye dropper this last feeding. I would think that is good and means it wants some food.

Sounds like it is trying to make the effort .. that is always a good sign!

It looks very perky this morning. I even got up and fed it once during the night and then early morning.

I got interupted writing this. So I decided to clean up the poopy chick TV with clean paper towels. Filled up the feeder again so that the level of food is high. Then put everyone back and they decided to eat. Feeding frenzy :-)) The little one tried too as it watched all the others. It kept trying and it did actually eat some crumbles but not much. But this is the first time it would eat so that is good. It's trying to eat again now. The poor thing gets pushed around by everyone else so gets easily distracted.

Thank you Annie for telling me about the mashed up boiled egg to feed. I would have never thought of it by myself.

The thanks goes to ZZ, it's her famous recipe and we're fortunate that she shared it with us!! I'd still keep feeding the formula until the baby is pushing the other chicks around LOL.

Well, I might be a real chicken farmer now. I sold 4 of my EE's to make room for some Welsummers. I'm going to cry like an idiot when they pick them up tomorrow.

Oh, sorry that you are sad. :-(( But think of the positive and your new chickens. Didn't you already have Welsummers?

My little one was drinking lots this morning after I wrote my post above. This is new too. I have never seen it drink either. And it drank lots and was very much sure about going over to the water fountain and doing lots of drinking. It didn't let anyone distract it. Just went back if it was pushed around. As a matter of fact it is drinking again now.

I will fed it afew times today and then see how it goes. It looks better as it has groomed itself too but still looks funny as it can't do its head. I have tried and tried to wash off all sticky gunk it might have and just am going to leave it now. It will grow out of the gunked up fuzz.

Rita, I actually run my Chick starter grower through an old coffee grinder to make the feed easier to manage for the tiny ones. It really helps.

I noticed that they pick out and eat the smaller pieces. I don't have a coffee grinder so will continue to watch it to see that it can eat. Its running around in there with all the others and I mean running. So I bet it is feeling much better.

I forgot to add that this is such a learning experience for me. I have had many different types of birds in years past but the chickens are so different in many ways. First thing was that I never had birds before that could feed themselves right away like chickens and orstrich do. I had birds that feed their babies like the outside songbirds do.

This message was edited Oct 25, 2010 12:13 PM

Pictures-

Little guys :-)) The one I have been feeding is in the front row to the most right. Its one of the light chicks.

This message was edited Oct 25, 2010 12:28 PM

Another shot. This time it is way in the back facing the grass.

The light chicks are Lavendars. The black chicks are black splits for Lavender. It means that if a hen and bred back to a lavender rooster half the little ones would be lavender and half come out black again.

This message was edited Oct 25, 2010 12:32 PM

The cutest of the two blacks which has way more white in its face than the other chick.