Rookie move #102. I spent the morning crying because N- my husband, had to euthanize 3 baby chicks. Developing a "farmers backbone" is not an easy task. I really thought I was doing a great job. We had a broody hen that sat on 4 eggs and 2 made it, one never hatched and one partially hatched and just didn't make it. Circle of life.. I get it and I'm ok with it. I know our animals have a GREAT life while they are here but when the death of something is due to your ignorance it changes the heart a bit.
Basically we set up our incubator. GREAT INCUBATOR BY THE WAY http://incubatorwarehouse.com/hova-bator-genesis-1588-deluxe-kit.html I think we placed 34 eggs.....actuall I put in 23 and N- tossed in 11 more for good measure. This was our fist time using the incubator and just from what we have read we thought less than half or half would hatch and a lot of those would be roosters so the more the marrier. Not so much, in my opinion...now.. that was WAY TOO MANY EGGS. They should hatch in 21 days but ours started early at 17 but they were popping out like crazy. All healthy and precious and guess who got WAY too excited and kept opening the lid. YOU GOT IT! They are not lying when they say DON'T OPEN THE LID UNLESS YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO. If there are no eggs pipping or breaking through then you're ok to retrieve the dried baby chicks to place in the brooder but I failed to read that. So due to my ignorance 6 babies were stuck in there eggs. What happens, is the humidity goes down FAST when you open the lid and if the eggs have holes already pecked through, the membrane dries up like leather and makes it impossibe for them to peck out. YES we pulled them out and peeled the shells off of 3 but that was a bad decision because they all had deformed legs or just weren't ready so that made it even harder because they were chirping and breathing but really suffering. SO another "LEARNING EXPERIENCE" but at the expense of a life which really really sucks. I am SO grateful for N- He is so calm when it comes to situations like this. He is VERY humane and kind and handles it. THANK YOU THANK YOU!!
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Rookie move #102. I spent the morning crying because N- my husband, had to euthanize 3 baby chicks. Developing a "farmers backbone" is not an easy task. I really thought I was doing a great job. We had a broody hen that sat on 4 eggs and 2 made it, one never hatched and one partially hatched and just didn't make it. Circle of life.. I get it and I'm ok with it. I know our animals have a GREAT life while they are here but when the death of something is due to your ignorance it changes the heart a bit.
Basically we set up our incubator. GREAT INCUBATOR BY THE WAY http://incubatorwarehouse.com/hova-bator-genesis-1588-deluxe-kit.html I think we placed 34 eggs.....actuall I put in 23 and N- tossed in 11 more for good measure. This was our fist time using the incubator and just from what we have read we thought less than half or half would hatch and a lot of those would be roosters so the more the marrier. Not so much, in my opinion...now.. that was WAY TOO MANY EGGS. They should hatch in 21 days but ours started early at 17 but they were popping out like crazy. All healthy and precious and guess who got WAY too excited and kept opening the lid. YOU GOT IT! They are not lying when they say DON'T OPEN THE LID UNLESS YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO. If there are no eggs pipping or breaking through then you're ok to retrieve the dried baby chicks to place in the brooder but I failed to read that. So due to my ignorance 6 babies were stuck in there eggs. What happens, is the humidity goes down FAST when you open the lid and if the eggs have holes already pecked through, the membrane dries up like leather and makes it impossibe for them to peck out. YES we pulled them out and peeled the shells off of 3 but that was a bad decision because they all had deformed legs or just weren't ready so that made it even harder because they were chirping and breathing but really suffering. SO another "LEARNING EXPERIENCE" but at the expense of a life which really really sucks. I am SO grateful for N- He is so calm when it comes to situations like this. He is VERY humane and kind and handles it. THANK YOU THANK YOU!!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment