Chick hatching roller coaster
Learning to hatch chicks is a
roller coaster of emotion. The excitement of the first pipping,
worry as nothing happens for hours, elation as a
healthy chick pops out of the shell. Then agony as a chick
that was nearly hatched is accidentally clawed by its recently hatched
sibling and perishes without quite making it out of the egg. More
sadness as I autopsy four other dead chicks --- one made the beginning
of an exit hole in the egg 36 hours previously then gave up and three
are nearly fully formed but are unaccountably dead in the shell. I bury
them under the peach tree and remind myself that this first trial is a
learning endeavor and we did get two live chicks.
But can they play
together? The chick that hatched Sunday afternoon is already
drinking and running about in its brooder by Monday at lunch while its
sibling hatched nearly a day later and gets brutally pecked when I
introduce it to the brooder. All the youngest chick wants to do
is to sleep off its exertions, so I clean out the wet, foul-smelling
incubator and pop the chick back in for a few more hours of solitary confinement.
But this morning, the late chick is belly up in its incubator --- late-hatched chicks often don't make it through the first day.
I'll be posting the
scientific side of what I learned and our plans for the next hatch over
on our chicken blog later in
the week. For now, though, I'm just practicing my deep breathing
and reminding myself that this was an experiment and I said I'd be happy with one living chick.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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I would consider This successful. You got one new chick and a handsome one at that. My first try last year I incubated 30 eggs and ended with 3 chicks. Second try 24 eggs and 4 pips and no chicks. Humidity to low I think?
Wouldn't it be easier if we just had a few broody hens. I would gladly fight them for eggs on a daily bases if I knew she would sit for me on occasion. I think I'll put an add on craiglist looking for anyone wanting to rid themselves of a broody girl.
Congrats and I bet you will have more success the next round. In later spring you can do away with the space heater and have a more even temp to work with.
I really appreciate you sharing your experience. It makes me feel less like I failed the chicks and more like hatching at home is tough and low results are to be expected the first time around. Hopefully I'll learn from my mistakes and do better next time!
I totally agree that the broody hen option looks better and better...if you can get a good broody hen! I tried the craigslist route with no luck. It seems like the chickens most people raise have broodiness bred out of them and it's tough to find a good mother hen.
As a result, we've decided to buy some Cuckoo Maran eggs since they're what Harvey Ussury uses for his broody hens and he's in a similar climate. If we can get any of them to hatch, maybe by next year we'll be working with a couple of broody hens!
I had a similar experience with my incubator last year. My wife accidentally left a window open overnight above the incubator, and the eggs got chilled. Only about half a dozen (from 40-odd eggs) survived the hatching, and half of those died within the first couple of days. Very disappointing, to say the least.
For the next batch of chicks, I put 12 fertile eggs under a broody hen. She broke two accidentally and the other 10 hatched. Two more died very young (I don't know the cause), and I found another one dead a few months later (I think one of my other chickens may have killed it). But the remaining 7 are big and strong and doing very well. They're probably only a month or so off laying/crowing now.
Incubators are great when you can get the conditions right. Broodies are great when you have a good one. Both will cause you heartbreak when they don't cooperate!