Lesson Learned

During my turkey egg hatch (of last post), at day 14/28 I candled the eggs.  There were many who weren't fertile, so I decided to fill the spaces in the incubator with 10 orphington cross eggs that I had kicking around, knowing that they wouldn't hatch until 7 days after the turkey poults were due to hatch.  This was a big mistake!

As you know from the last post, I had a lot of trouble regulating the temperature and humidity of my incubator during my turkey hatch.  The temperature was sometimes really low, sometimes really high, and my humidity was all over the place too.  Also, keep in mind that I had to take the chicken eggs out of the egg turner on day 11/21 of their incubation.  Normally, I should have left them in the egg turner until about day 18, and I should have had a lower humidity until that time too.  Instead these little eggs experienced everything wrong: temperature fluctuations, no consistent turning after day 11, and way too much humidity for half of their gestation!  Poor little things seemed doomed to fail.

Well, day 21 arrived and the incubator was silent as the grave.  Nothing, not even knocking.  The eggs didn't seem to be doing anything.  But I had told myself that THIS TIME I was not going to open the incubator prematurely.  Everything I read says NOT TO OPEN THE INCUBATOR in lockdown until the hatching is done.  But every time I get curious, or want to take chicks out, or want to help slow hatchers, etc etc etc, to the detriment of the remaining eggs/chicks.  But this time I was going to let them be.  That's what I told myself.

Well, day 22 came and went with nothing again, but that night finally finally one chick pipped and hatched.  And I told myself that it could live in the incubator for 3 days without additional food or water.  And I told myself that I wouldn't open the lid.  

But of course, when nothing seemed doing on day 23 and I assumed that that sad lonely chick was a soul survivor, I opened the lid and took him out.  And saw that there was another pipping.  I went to work, hoping for the best.  And amazingly another baby was born that day.  And more were pipping.

When I woke up Saturday morning (day 24) I realized that there were 2 eggs still alive, but they hadn't progressed since the evening before.  And one little beak sticking out of the egg was clearly no longer breathing.  And my heart sank as I realized that once again I doomed some more babies to a rough hatch with all my interventions.  So, my Saturday was spent helping babies hatch.  Wetting membranes... chipping away little bits of shell... waiting... waiting...  And amazingly 2 more chicks hatched (with assistance) and one hatched on it's own. 

But these babies were weak.  Really weak.  And although I left them in the incubator, Sunday morning (day 25) brought me more sadness when I woke to realize that one of the babies in the incubator that I had worked to hard to help was dead, and one of the two in the brooder who had seemed strong and healthy had also died in the night.  I now had 1 living chick in the brooder and two in the incubator, and I was ready to be done with this hatch and clean my stinky incubator and put this sad hatch behind me.  So I scooped the 2 living chicks from the incubator and put them in the brooder and unplugged the incubator and asked my husband to dispose of the dead baby in the incubator.  But it doesn't end here...

When Rio went to clean out the incubator he told me that one of the unhatched eggs was peeping.  I knew that the 10 eggs had been growing, but by this point on day 25 I hadn't considered that there were any still alive in their shells.  Rio cleaned out the remaining eggs and dead chick, and left the pipper, who I was sure would be a goner.  Rio kept checking in on the baby, who was still alive, but I was keeping my distance hoping that the baby would either die or hatch already because I wanted to clean the incubator and I had had enough heartache from this hatch already.  But 4 hours later I decided I needed to help the baby myself.  Which is the point that I realized that the poor egg was sitting on a cold wet cloth in a cold incubator because I had unplugged it and forgot to turn it one again!!!!  Oh my heart broke for this cold baby clinging to life beyond all hope or odds.  

So I turned on the incubator because I didn't know what else to do.  

And Rio finally said, let me pop off his cap and see if he can hatch.  And withing minutes the baby had hatched, believe it or not!  And I pulled him out of the incubator and put him in the brooder.  And the other chicks descended on him like they had murderous intentions!  And I nearly lost my mind for this poor little baby who had overcome so much and was now about to be killed by his siblings.  I separated him from the rest and put a light on him and he seemed so strong and like such a teeny tiny fighter. 

And when I got home later that day he had died.

And so, here I sit, listening to 3 little squeeky chicks, and wonder if they will make it or if they too will join their siblings in the coop in the sky.  And I wonder if this is all worth it.  And I realize that my lesson has been learned and that I won't incubate eggs with staggered hatched dates anymore.  This is sure a learning curve.  And humbling.

But then I wash out the incubator, and set more eggs, and start counting down until the next hatch........

First Turkey Hatch!!... Not very successful

In this first hatch I put in 32 heritage Ridley Bronze turkey eggs into the Hovabater on February 20/14 for an anticipated hatch date of March 20/14.  When I candled these eggs 2 weeks later, only 16 were viable, plus 2 others that had some development.  On March 5/14 I added 10 Lavender Orphington eggs hoping for a hatch on March 25/14.

On Monday, March 17 I took out the egg turner and increased the humidity in the incubator.  The poults started knocking the next day.  Right on time, two beautiful poults hatched out on the afternoon of Thursday March 20/14, and many others started pipping.  

By that evening 2 more had joined them.  The water trays were looking low, and I was worried about the humidity dropping, so I made the decision to add warm water and removed the four babies that evening.  Even though I only cracked the lid a little and worked as fast as I could this may have ended up be to the detriment of all the others.

By the morning of Friday, March 21/14 it was becoming apparent that the other babies were in trouble because, although they were still alive they were progressing very slowly.  By the evening of March 21/14, only one more poult had hatched.  

On the morning of Saturday, March 22/14 it was obvious that 5 of the babies had died in their shells in the process of hatching.  There were 2 still alive but stuck in their eggs, and 6 that had not pipped at all. 

I followed the advise in this link to assist the two babies that were struggling: http://www.backyardchickens.com/a/step-by-step-guide-to-assisted-hatching.  The babies were ready, but their membranes were tight and their shells were hard.  I helped them unzip the shell the rest of the way around the top and moistened the membranes.  At that point I returned them to the incubator on a damp washcloth and they were able to kick out of the shells.  They are still in the incubator and are looking weak, but hopefully they will make it.  

The ones under the light are looking good, and are eating and drinking.  They are curious so when I showed them the water with my finger they mimicked me with their beaks and figured out how to drink.  To help encourage them to eat I put some turkey starter on a paper towel with a shiny penny on it and they pecked at it.

So, all in all, out of 18 turkey eggs in the incubator, 5 hatched on their own, 2 hatched with assistance, 5 died trying to hatch out, and 6 didn't pip at all [edit: after candling upon disposal I noticed that 2 of these were fully developed, 2 looked like early death, and 2 that hadn't developed at all].