Wednesday, November 18, 2020

The Big Day Arrives - Our BCM's Eggs hatch!

 


 

What turned out to be a long weekend of hatching was a true joy, let me explain.  Friday, Nov 13 was the chicken hatch date. As of 12 PM, only one egg had hatched. Over the past 21 days, while the eggs were in the incubator, there have been three occasions where power was interrupted.  The weekend of Nov 8 and 9 the power was out on both days. I have some timers in the classroom for lights and they were both off by 5 hours.  Saturday morning 11/14  we had five chicks total, on Sunday morning 11/15  we had 18 total chicks.  On Monday morning 11/16 we totaled 19, and the last hatched on Tuesday morning 11/17 our last chick hatched. This chick had to be helped along. The egg liner had dried a bit and was stuck to the chick. I let it stay in the Incubator until 3 PM and moved it into the brooder with the rest of the chicks.

Of the  26 eggs placed in the incubator, 20 eggs hatched, the last being  Tuesday morning 11/17, four days after the hatch date of 11/13. The eggs were placed in the incubator on Saturday 10/24.  Today, Wednesday 11/18  I broke open the remaining eggs to see what condition they were in. The remaining BCM/OE were all feathered, but dead. The brown speckled egg was not fertile, if it was maybe it looked to be about 3 days old, The two blues were both at late stages of growth with feathers, one was partially alive, when I cracked the egg it took a couple of breaths and died, it looked to be at about 17/18 days of development, note this was day 24 in the incubator.





The breakdown.

BCM Chocolate    13/15

Olive Color             2/3

Gray Color              1/1

Blue                         2/4

Tan                         2/3

Brown speckled      0/1

Total                      20/26

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