They hatched!
They hatched!
Well, 5 of them did anyway. 5 out of 9 is not the best ratio, but it’s better than last year’s hatch ratio. (2/7)
So we checked on the eggs on the morning of Day 20 (June 7th). And we found a pip!
That meant that there was a chick pecking it’s way out from the inside!
We also found one half hatched and slightly squished. I thought it was dead, so I picked it up and removed it from it’s shell to see if I could tell what kind it was when I felt it move in my hand! It wasn’t doing well at all though, so we brought it inside and tried to warm it up and nurse it to health.
But, sadly, it passed away.
But it wasn’t long until the one that had pipped earlier had hatched.
And, another was right there with it.
Still slightly wet
All told, we had three hatch on Day 20 and two more hatch the next day. There were 4 fully formed chicks in eggs that did not make it for some reason.😢
Of the five that hatched, three are sex-link hybrids and are all boys. Of course! 🙄 The other two are pure breed Speckled Sussex and we won’t know for several more weeks of they are male or female.
White spots mean boys
Overall, I’m fairly pleased that we got 5 chicks out of this hatch. I still would like to figure out what’s going on that we don’t get a better hatching success rate. I am leaning toward the idea that it might have something to do with our very low humidity here in the high desert. But five is better than none, or even just one or two, so I’m counting my blessings. I just really hope that at least one of those Speckled Sussex chicks is a girl!
—————————————————
On June 9th (Day 12), we candled the eggs from our other broody hen.
There were 11 eggs remaining (one went missing) and it was very obvious which eggs were developing and which were not. There were a couple eggs that were just not fertilized. As I thought, Uno the rooster just couldn’t get around to all the ladies all the time.
Unfertile egg.
There were also some that had developed a bit but then died of for unknown reasons.
Blood in the fluid, no visible veins
If it had been day 5 or so, I would have said this one looked normal. But at day 12, it should look quite different, as you’ll see in a moment.
The black spot at the top was a developing embryo in the very beginning stages when it died.
There were 5 eggs that looked like the following pictures. Notice the obvious veins/blood vessels.
Because these eggs had white shells, the blood vessels were very easy to see with the light. We could even see the movement of the fluid inside as the chick moved around! Check out the video below!
That was an awesome experience!
A day or two after candling, another of the eggs got broken, so we are down to 4. But Welly is being a good broody Mama, so we are hopeful to get some chicks out of theses ones, too.
Her hatch date is tomorrow!
Castle Rock Homestead 