First of all, sorry for the lack of updates! I've been über busy at work with an unscheduled report being assigned to me. That has really scuppered a lot of my free time, and I've been working long hours... anway enough of the grousing.
Last Sunday I had 10 CLB eggs due to hatch; however when I candled them again on day 18 with my home made candler, I thought that possibly 6 or 8 had quit, and only 2 were viable. However I was unsure, so I marked the "viable" eggs and put them all into the hatcher. I was most excited when I had a pip on Saturday, unfortunately the chick pipped through his yolk, and drowned in the shell :(
On Saturday I received my new "800 lumen" torch from ebay. I don't think it is really 800 lumens, but I can surely see into all of my eggs now! So on sunday I candled the remaining eggs in the hatcher, and as I had thought, only one was viable (the one I had marked), and the others were quitters :'(
By Sunday evening I couldn't stand it any longer and i cracked the shell of the remaining egg as it had been pipped internally for over 24 hours... in hindsight it was probably the worst thing I could have done, even though I meant well.
The chick needed a lot of assistance to hatch over 48 hours, and although he's had a warm bath and blowdry, he never really fluffed up, and I came home from wrok yesterday to find that he'd died :(
From now on I will never assist a chick to hatch.
Anyway, on to happier news, I've now ordered 10 araucana eggs from Germany. They appear to be a beautiful blue colour on the website, so I hope this is how they are in reality. The postage is waaaaay cheaper than the ebay postage, so that is a bonus. Pics to follow when they have arrived.
Further happier news: on Tuesday morning I candled the remaining 19 bantam dotte eggs, and found that 18 of them were viable, so they were moved to the hatcher, which had been partitioned off to keep the colours separate (well that was the idea!)
Imagine my surprise when I came home last night (day 19) to find 2 pips! Even more surprising, one of the chicks acutally hatched last night, and while it is not unheard of for bantams to hatch on day 19, I think they mostly go through to day 21.
So, I got up this morning to a fluffly little chick. I put a zip tie on him to colour mark him (I think he is one of the buff laced, but I won't be sure until he starts to get his feathers through - unfortunately the eggs were poorly marked, and although they are differentiated, I don't know which are which). There were also a further 3 pips, so I'm hoping that I will have at least some to watch hatch tonight.
I'll update this post with photos once I get the chance.
No comments:
Post a Comment