Tough Egg to Crack

Is everyone tired of hearing about chicks yet? Well, it seemed to me that I've been doing an awful lot of writing about them. Then it dawned on me that they are the dominant force around here. We have Mr. J plus his eight hens, the twenty seven roasters and now ten little hatchlings from the classroom. That's 46 chickens! And we also brought home one egg that was having a really hard time hatching. I told the kids it may not survive. Another of nature's harsh lessons. But we "helped it" hatch out last night. I guess I'll find out this morning if our total can be updated to 47. But, you know what they say, "Don't count your chicks before they hatch!"

Here's a picture of some of the chicks at home in their box (finally out of the incubator) plus the one egg that stalled out hatching. It is said that if the egg is pipped for more than 24 hours the membrane beneath dries out and the chick is usually so large that it cannot break free of the egg.



Here's another picture of lots of the little ones. You can't see them all but you can see a lot of them. It's amazing that most of them bellied right up to the food and water and started to eat and drink.



We have:
2 brown stripey chicks
2 yellow with spots chicks
4 black and yellow chicks
2 "turken" bald neck chicks (one black and one yellow)

So, after those little critters were settled comfortably, I turned my attention to the peeping egg. Thank goodness for the internet and Backyard Chicken. I guess lots of people want to "help" their chicks hatch. And this is generally a very bad idea. But, in some cases, you may be able to save the chick. There is a long process about temperature, humidity, only removing the shell, not membrane, etc. that one should read before attempting to "help" the chick hatch. And realize that it is quite possible this chick won't make it anyway.

We decided we'd ring the egg shell exposing the membrane and put the egg back in the bator for a few hours with some wet wash clothes and dampen the membrane in the hopes it will hatch itself.



The poor little thing continued to peep and struggle. But I think it was really weak from having tried this for the last 24 hours. So, we have it a little more assistance.



Now, these images can't due justice to what we were experiencing. This egg was peeping and pushing and wiggling so hard. It was so squirmy and stuck. I had lots of kids around me watching and waiting and wondering. No pressure. I was so afraid I was going to accidentally kill the chick. A couple of times I had to stop and moisten the membrane and put it back in the bator because there was some blood on the membrane. I started to worry that maybe this one wasn't "done" yet.

After some more time elapsed and my heart couldn't take all the frustrated peeping and I took it back out and helped wipe away, very gently, the membrane.



Now you see the shell still on the bottom of the chick there. When we removed that, the chick was still attached to some yolk still attached to the shell. I took a pair of clean scissors and cut the yolk as close to the shell as possible.

I put the chick and damp cloth back in the bator. It staggered around like something that had been in a horrible accident, dragging this bit of yolk looking thing behind it. I'm hoping that it will dry up and fall off like an umbilical cord.

The following picture is not a great one. It's of the chick once I put it back in the bator as it crashed out and rested for a bit. For a few hours before we went to bed it peeped and slept and dragged itself around. It was kind of hard to watch.



So, this morning that tough bird was all dry and fuzzy and the yolk was drying up. I popped it in the box under the light with its fuzzy friends. Here's a look:



So, it looks like our new totals for the chicks are 11!!

We have:
2 brown stripey chicks
2 yellow with spots chicks
5 black and yellow chicks
2 "turken" bald neck chicks (one black and one yellow)

Valerie did notice that the brown ones have extra toes. One has like five toes on one foot and six on the other ....?! The rest of the chicks have three toes in front and a back one like they should.