Saturday, April 09, 2005
Well. . . yesterday I went against everything I've ever been taught about helping chicks hatch out of their eggs. Egg number three, whom we call "Jack Jack" pipped its shell around 9:00am Friday morning. By 3:00pm, he hadn't progressed at all. Everything I had read up to that point said if the egg pipped but didn't progress then it probably wouldn't survive. But, with further research I found ONE website that reccommended helping such eggs after 6-10 hours of little or no progress. So, I dove right in and started peeling away the shell little by little, just enough to expose the head and beak. Afterall, if the poor chick was just gonna die, I might as well let him come out and say hello to the world for a few moments, right?
We left Jack-Jack to go to a birthday party and upon our return, several hours later, we found him in the same position, no progress. So, I peeled away some more shell which freed his head entirely from the egg. By midnight, he had managed to free one claw and was trying desperately to escape. I went to bed. By 4:00am, Jack Jack had made his escape, all except for what I would call his umbilical cord which was still attatched to his shell. His egg sack hadn't completely absorbed. Again, from what I'd read, that meant bad luck for the poor peep. Well. . . Jack Jack is no loser, no quitter, no giver-upper. No way! Jack-Jack, I am proud to say is a fighter and has held his own proudly. He has now graduated to the brooder where he happily follows Lucky around the box, taking turns pecking at one another, drinking and eating and pooping merrily. He has fluffed up quite nicely, and while he looks different from his brothers/sisters he is definitely happy to be in the bunch. His joyous peeping is driving us all a little mad, but hopefully will calm down a bit as time wears on.
Hero continues to struggle and we've come to the conclusion that his/her legs are paralyzed. He/she spends most of her time hiding in the corner so that Jack-Jack and Lucky will leave her alone. But tonight she almost brought me to tears when she gained enough balance on her scabbed knees and bottom to sit up straight and tall and look Jack Jack right in the eye and peck right back at him. I'm not sure Hero will make it but she has a fight in her as well and will not go down easy. I've been helping her drink water every now and then, and she seems happy to sleep by the food dish so perhaps she's eating too. Only time will tell.
Lucky is fiesty and mean and I'm a little bit afraid of how he/she will be when he's a little bigger. I think I'm gonna have to learn how to hold a mean chicken properly--which I think is by the legs--and invest in some gloves. He/she is definitely the leader of the pack and makes sure the rest know it.
And last but not least, egg number four, whom I think we will call Miracle, continues to struggle as Jack Jack did. Unfortunatley she doesn't seem to have the fight in her that Jack did and I think it truly will be a miracle if she survives. I've been helping her out little by little but there's a lot more blood and stickiness this time around. It's been more than 24 hours since she pipped the shell and that is never a good sign. I removed the other three eggs just now and cracked them open to try and see why they didn't crack. Looks like one didn't absorb any of the egg sack and another only absorbed about half. And the third was just rotten with nothing in it at all. Anyway, I'm sleepy from all the excitement and ready to call it a night but before I go here's a few snapshots from the day. The first is of Jack Jack.
   
posted by Shana # 10:14 PM 
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