The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: NicandChic on February 05, 2014, 09:13:15 am
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Morning, a quick question...last night around 12.30 2 of our Wyandotte chicks hatched in the incubator doing well this morning, fluffed up mooching about. This leaves 5 other eggs lots of tweeting, all pipped, 1 currently trying to hatch, should I move the 2 that hatched last night into the brooder or leave them jumping, rolling and pecking at their hatching siblings? :chook:
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Not an expert by any means but I'd be inclined to move them to the brooder of they are lively and it's warm enough for them. Otherwise they might impeded the others or peck them as you say.
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Thanks Doganjo kind of what I'm thinking, they have been pecking at the hole of the 1 that's pipped and popping its beak out, also rolling the others about. I've read it's good for them to be in with the other unhatched eggs as they can hear them and want to hatch but then they may damage them! They are both sporadically napping then diving about like crazy little demons :-J
Just thinking if I do take them out, they will have a head start regards food & water, would that make them more inclined to bully any new additions that hatch later in the day! :thinking:
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my best hatches have always been when i have left them and not opened the lid. its hard to resist but opening the lid affects humidity etc.
id wait a full day if you can.
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If they are dry and fluffed up move them NicandChic. You will need to be very quick to avoid lowering the humidity in the incubator as that will result in the hatching chicks sticking to the membrane. While they are bouncing around they disturb the unhatched and disorientate them. This results in pipped eggs not hatching as they run out of energy trying to compensate for their altered positions. To avoid this problem in future try getting some 35mm pipe insulation and cut 5mm slices off to set the eggs in at the hatching stage. Don't forget to disinfect the rings, which is best done when the incubator is disinfected and run to temperature at the start. You can then leave the hatcher closed for a lot longer, but after 24 hours the chicks will want to feed and drink so they will have to be removed. Commercially they use a light at one end to draw the chicks away from the eggs.
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Thanks, will go get them sorted.
Magical little time wasters, can't stop watching them. First time we've incubated, borrowed a small incubator from a friend, bought the eggs via ebay thinking not much would happen :innocent:
Not sure what I will do if we end up with 7 cockerels, will be just my luck :-J
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Personally I would wait longer. There is a real danger of vacuum packing the pipped ones if you open it up. We've done it when we first started and wished we hadn't. We now wait the full 24 hours before we remove any.
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All fine so far, 2 chicks from last night moved into brooder, chick 3 not long hatched and No4 makng a move.
Remaining 3 pipped yesterday, still hear tweeting so hopefully they will feel like hatching soon.
Their isnt much room in the incubator and I do feel leaving last nights 2 chicks could of possibly compromised the others progress, time will tell.
Any advice greatly appreciated x
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I check the incubator at regular intervals and open it up only first thing in the morning and last thing at night to remove hatched chicks. BUT if I see an egg that's pipped for a couple of hours but progressed no further I will remove the egg from the incubator, help it out of the shell then quickly put it back in when I next open up the incubator. Once pipped the chick will continue to grow as it still has nourishment from the yolk but the membranes dry out quite quickly and it cannot progress further. Very occasionally the reason is that it's not 100% perfect and it will "fade away" after a couple of days, but mostly they survive. I've found this more likely to happen with bought in eggs, where the breeding stock may not have been perfect to start with or perhaps hasn't been fed a breeder ration.
The later hatched chicks, if healthy, will soon be indistinguishable from the first ones.
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I've only hatched ducks in an incubator and I opened regularly through the hatch as they were struggling to get out. I filled a sprayer with warm water before opening so the first thing I did was spray all the eggs with warm water. No idea whether it helped but reckoned it would keep them damp.
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Our final count out of 7 eggs...6 little chickys, 2 in the brooder & 4 in the incubator fluffing up! Took much longer than I thought, 2 hatched on day 21, 2 on day 22 and 2 early this morning. I did open the incubator a few times to refill water, replace lid on the water trough that the hatched chicks had kicked off, remove empty eggs. I've got 1 egg sat dong nothing, no pip etc, will take a look laters thanks for the posts.
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I'd open it at this stage, or even just pick it up and feel for movement. It just may have been too weak to crack the shell if the humidity was lowered by opening it a lot. and died
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Wee thing was the wrong way round in the egg, thought something wasnt right when it didnt pip like the rest, its head was at the smaller end looked perfect other than that, membrane was still nice looking, it would never of been able to get to the air cell I guess :-\
Rest are doing great, can't stop watching them :)
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Another quick question :eyelashes:
Has anyone had much luck feather sexing?
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If you look at the pin feathers you should see a noticeable difference in length when the chicks are a day old.
It is easy to compare and then see what you think.
Then theres the problem of remembering which ones had short and which ones had long pin feathers to prove that you were right! ( thats the bit I always neglect ).
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We put coloured collars on self coloured dogs - not sure it'd work for chicks though :roflanim: :roflanim: :roflanim:
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I'll have a go later once all are settled in the brooder, can't do any harm, I've been looking on the Internet so hopefully determine what I've got...maybe :-J
Out of the 6, 5 look the same, some with slightly blonder faces etc but I can't tell them apart just yet....but...we do have 1 imposter who is a lovely all over shade of...yellow! Not very Wyandotte looking!
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I must admit I'm never sure when to move chick's to the broader. I have to say the last to hatch of mine usually have more of a struggle so perhaps I should leave it longer. Have got a batch in now due in 16 days and I'll probably be up all night watching them hatch!!! It's just the most magical thing!!
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Did you check the pin feathers? I am intrigued to see what you think you have.
you can come back in a few months and see if you were right.
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Hmm well...out the 4 in the brooder (popping the other 2 in the morning) So far I think its 1 pullet & 3 cockerels :innocent: looking at the wings 3 have short fluffy ones while one looks quite different - has very long primary's I think their called, very hard to keep the little wriggles still & the wings are so teeny.
So far we have Marilyn (mine) Chunky (hubby's) Zulu (eldest sons) Doughnut (youngest sons) and the communal 2 (Bilbo & Frodo)
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On the wing feathers it depends on whether they are fast or slow feathering. My marans it was the girls with the faster feather development and with the cream legbars it was the boys.
I think from a dim and distant memory of reading something somewhere it depends on whether they are predominately European or Asian lineage. Fast feathering boys for European ie the egg laying stains, and slow feathering boy if Asian types - bred predominately for meat producing.
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you can get tiny leg rings for chicks - failing that a dab of tippex on their heads works as a temporary id.
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I used a bit of green food dye to mark the fluff of some of mine, worked well.
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I used a bit of green food dye to mark the fluff of some of mine, worked well.
Great idea
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I used a bit of green food dye to mark the fluff of some of mine, worked well.
Great idea
I stole it from someone else. ;D
I've just remembered, I worked in a bird behaviour lab years ago, and we used coloured marker pens to id chicks to groups for experiments, just drew blobs on their backs. (nothing sinister was done to them in the experiments). I was concerned about the toxic effects, but they'd been doing it for years and no probs. the chicks were reared to adulthood.
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We've only 6 & they all look a tiny bit different no probs so far identifying them individually.
Don't think I'm having much luck with feather sexing, all the wyandottes look the same, the one potential imposter Marilyn has very different wing tips (could I be that unlucky!! 5 cockerels & 1 hen) time will tell,
Have attached a quick pic :)