Easter Hatch-A-Long Update #6

While most of the chicks hatched on Thursday I was working outside, but before bed I made a list / # of chicks that hatched already, at least the ones I could see.

There were more hatching on Friday, but since I was working at the Humane Soceity, I never got a chance to record them. We then had a cleaning job, got home just in time to close up the chickens, do only ⅓  of the feed prep, and do a quick “head count” in the incubator. Since it looked like the hatch was done, I opened them up and “helped out “ a few chicks that had been stuck in their shells. While doing that, I found one extra Bielefelder egg that had pipped, but not hatched yet. Its membrane was still moist, so I put it back in the incubator. I did a few “eggtopsies” to find out why some of them never hatched. The majority were fully formed, but looked to have died a few days before the hatch. They hadn’t internally pipped, their membranes were moist, and some looked to have started the decay process, indicating they’d been dead since or before lockdown. While it’s sad to loose some of them, I also know it’s part of the process of breeding the strongest, healthiest chickens.

Easter Hatch-A-Long Summary:

Set 93 eggs on 4/12 before 3pm.

89 Eggs made it to Lockdown

72 Chicks Hatched

The first chick hatched 4/1 at 11pm, and last chicks hatched on 4/3.

2 chicks had to be culled due to leg issues.

2 more failed to thrive & were also culled