Well, we had a hatch. I have to admit I'm somewhat disappointed with the outcome, even though it IS better than the last attempts and we did increase the variables. So, a success in that aspect - but I had higher hopes for it.
We started off with 16 duck eggs and 14 chicken egg (our eggs for the first time). We refrigerated them for 7 days at 55 degrees with no rotation while in refrigeration. We culled 3 chicken eggs because non-viablity at candling at various times. Of the chicken, we had 5 hatch with 1 dying because one of the big chickens umm.. well.. Pecked it's head open. Of the ducks, we had a higher viability rate - only 1 was culled. We only had 5 hatch. All 5 had to be helped hatching though, as they couldn't get out of the shell on their own. There are 2 that have 1 sided blindness. (The same thing happened to the Buff Orpingtons we hatched out last time. We don't know what's happening. We suspect the flies are biting their eye, but I put fly netting over them so it would be a super sneaky fly and the ducks don't have the little pecky beaks like little chicks. I'm going to have to research this more because this is the second batch of hatch outs we've had with this problem.)
Conversely, we gave Matilda - one of our Dark Cornish hens 6 random eggs just as we were collecting them to sit on and she hatched them with with a 100% success rate. We also gave someone else 24 chicken eggs out of this same refrigerated batch and they had to cull 1 and had a success rate of 16/23. I think I am most disappointed about the ducks. I was hoping for more of those to hatch out cause they are so darned cute. I kind of wanted a little army of them.
This is the only light colored one of the bunch. It's also one of the one sided blind ones. It's laying in the warm spot taking a nap.
This little guy has figured out how to take a little bath in the water. The water is right in the warm spot too, just so they won't get to cold until they get their little feathers all grown in.
For our fall breeding we also have 2 does (bunnies) due soon too! Our little grey bunny and White rabbit are both due to have their second litters one Monday the (28th). For a short period of time, we're going to have 3 litters of babies with their mommies. We planned it this way - sort of. We poorly planned Black Bunny's litter. But. We wanted to have litters available for pets and food the right size near Christmas, and in order for THAT to happen we needed them to be born.. nowish. See, I can plan. Sort of.
Black Rabbit has had a litter of 6. She turned out to be our 1 animal so far that is a horrible, miserable mother and the second day - 3 of the 6 died. For the first 10 days we would have to go and keep checking to make sure the remaining 3 were warm (as they were frequently out of the nesting box and super cold) and put them with her for her to feed. Now the 3 babies are 3 weeks old and usually way too young to be eating or away from her - have started eating hay and pellets and lettuce.
They are HUGE. Well over a pound already. They are our biggest babies by far. This little guy has the best coloring EVER - it's a mottled brown/red with grey. He has the same dad and Dopey. I can't WAIT to breed Dopey and see what he has. But, since this Black Doe is such a horrid mom, we're going to give her one more try once these 3 are fully weaned and see if she's figured it out. Otherwise, we'll have to sell her and pick up another doe. We can't even use any of THESE babies to replace her - as they'd most likely be bad too.
We're also getting a new - GIANT - barn built! We need the extra room in the house, so we're going to move the stuff that's in the *shed* now into the new barn and make the *shed* into the full fledged rabbitry! It's pretty big so it'll be for storing the animal foods (and the big extra freezer and fridge) and bunnies! The new barn will be for big animals when it's cold - the goats and dogs - and the lawn mowers, wood, tools, stuff that normally goes in a garage. Then we'll transform the garage into a MIL suite type thing for my mother. It's already got a little sink out there and eventually put a little bathroom out there. It already has it's own entrance, and we can make a little cabinet, microwave, mini-fridge area for her. The barn should be built by the end of next week! Then we can move the kids into their own rooms. Hopefully, they'll sleep better - at least maybe they'll stop - heck it probably won't stop or change anything. They probably won't be able to sleep for the first 2 weeks because they're *afraid* to be alone..
