Sunday 30 December 2012

Raising cruelty free feathers part 2



Continuing on in the raising of cruelty free feathers we left off last Sunday with the little guy resting after struggling to hatch

Well the above little fella was the only one to hatch on day 21 and as we had set the eggs late in the day we were not very concerned. Ok they will all hatch on day 22.
We started with 34 eggs in the incubator going into the last few days of the hatching process. And I am sure many of you have heard the old adage don’t count your chickens before they hatch and either afterwards for that matter.
Several hatched on day 22 the first one to hatch was not doing well and we quickly realised it had problems with its legs that could not be overcome. Of the ones that hatched on day 22 two wandered away from the heat lamp and fell asleep you see young chicks will fall asleep while walking it is very funny to see. I check on the chicks in the brooder about every ½ hour after they first go in. Of the 2 I was able to save one the other dyed from hypothermia.
Day 23 Christmas day we were greeted with another new arrival apply named Christmas. Of the first eggs to hatch all came from the incubator we stopped using. We were beginning to realise that we had problems with the thermometer and think it was registering higher than the temperature really was upon checking with another thermometer to our horror we found that this was true. This was causing an extreamly delayed hatch and weak chicks. I know what you’re thinking you should have checked the thermometers before you started. I did both thermometers where checked against a digital one and any discrepancy noted. Bieng glass thermometers the vial moved indicating the wrong temp.
By Thursday we turned off the incubator. And sadly only had 9 healthy live chicks out of the 34 eggs.
13 hatched we lost 4.
here are some photos of our 9 cute fluff balls on day 7




 You can tell the darkest one is all ready top chick
untill next week Henry
 

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