h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Poultry keeping has been fraught today Well, actually, let me back up to yesterday...

Yesterday at 3pm, Day 21 of incubation started. I had one chick hatch early--a Black Copper Marans (which I could've sworn I'd heard tend to hatch later), and by 3pm, another egg had pipped, started to zip in the correct direction, then stopped. I *think* by 3, that the chick had started to zip again--unfortunately, at 90 degrees to the direction it had been going. A bunch of photos and questions later, the consensus on my hatching thread on BYC ( http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1036123/the-hatch-that-byc-built-aka-frieda-vs-the-brinsea-warning-pic-heavy/ starting sometime after post 100, I think) was that the chick may be malpositioned, and to keep an eye on it--especially since the first chick hatched kept sitting on it!

When I got up this morning, the chick had made no progress. I carefully chipped away bits of shell with tweezers to finish the line that the chick should have made, but left the cap on--the more work the chick has to do to get out, the stronger it will be in the long run. Fortunately, the chick was strong enough to push its way out while I was at work, so I didn't have to decide whether I wanted to help a chick that wasn't strong enough to hatch, or not. Since it had taken so long, a bit of the membrane had dried out and stuck to some of the chick's down--so the top of the egg was hanging off the side of the poor chick's head. A quick, careful snip took care of that.

When I went out to feed the chickens this morning, Frieda, my broody, was wet, and the nest and eggs were soaked. I'd forgotten that the nest box she chose has a leak above it, and we had quite a storm last night. Well, Frieda decided she was done. (Understandable not only from a human discomfort perspective--most of the ways to "break" a broody revolve around cooling the underside of the chicken. Somehow, this stops the hormonal changes that cause broodiness.) Since the plan had been to give any chicks that hatched to her to raise, and a non-broody hen is, at best, going to ignore chicks (at worst, well, if it's smaller and slower than a chicken, it's prey...) I had to set up a brooder. While I had the supplies I needed, I had to change how the power supply is arranged in the coop so that I could continue the supplemental lighting to keep the day length to 12-14 hours so that those hens who are molting might return to laying before spring (and the ones not yet laying might start before then--and the one I have currently laying will keep going--11 birds, 7 of laying age, and I've been getting 1 egg a day for almost a month now!) as well as run the heating pad for the brooder. I'll talk about the different ways to brood chicks tomorrow, if something interesting doesn't come up instead

Got distracted--I wasn't actually done

Anyway, I've got Frieda's eggs here in the house, coming up to room temperature. Once they do, I'll put them in the incubator and see what happens. I don't have a lot of hope, though--not only did they get very cold, but they were soaking wet, which increases the chance of bacteria entering through the pores in the shell, if the bloom got washed away.

Who'da thunk this would get so gripping? I have my fingers crossed for those eggs.

Deb

Has this given you more to brood about, Amy?