Backwards

Unfortunately, our chick numbers are going backwards. 😕 

We had left one hatched chick in the incubator overnight to continue to dry and strengthen (they have enough food reserves from the egg yolk to survive a day or two without food and water). This morning when we checked, it was dead. 

There had been a chick working on hatching yesterday afternoon; you could see its beak moving through the hole in the shell. I left it because it can be harmful to the chick to help it out of the shell. It can also take 12-24 hours for them to come out once pipped. 

Unfortunately, that one was dead too when we checked this morning. 

That leaves us with a total of five chicks. Here's a picture I took yesterday of our brooder setup. 

I candled the rest of the eggs to see if there were duds, quitters (eggs that started developing and then died partway through), or ones ready to hatch. I found around six duds, three-five quitters, and a bunch that looked questionable. The questionable eggs stayed in- two looked like they were pipping on the inside - and the rest got taken out. 

One more egg had just started pipping. Unfortunately, there was no more progress after supper and we suspect it's not going to hatch. No more progress on any other eggs. We had planned to pull the plug on Saturday afternoon, but tonight we were so frustrated we did it early. 

So our ending hatch rate is 6/41 with 5 surviving. 

What went wrong? We have some guesses. G tested our hygrometer's accuracy against the garage thermostat and our hygrometer is accurate. That means the incubator temp is off, which lines up with our first hatch being after 21 days. The edge of the incubator read 10 degrees cooler than it was supposed to be. 😬 No wonder our hatch rate was crummy. 

Further testing- G held it up next to the temperature probe, which read accurately. Hmm, that must mean the fan isn't circulating the air (another potential reason the hatch dates were off). 

G called the company and they said they'd send us a new fan to replace the old one. TSC said they'd replace the whole incubator for us. We could alternatively return it and get a different kind. We're still on the fence which route to take. 

In positive news, Jip actually was well behaved with the chicks yesterday.

Not so well behaved today though... All day he nipped/chased the kids here and there. I'd catch him doing it and call him off. He listened pretty well; he'd sit down and try to look innocent. 

After church tonight, G checked his phone and found a text from our neighbor saying that Jip had been dragging around one of the baby goats, the one with weak back legs. No! We got home as fast as we could, praying we wouldn't find a dead baby. 

Thankfully Blackie was okay (our neighbor had gotten Jip to stop). The poor guy was quite traumatized with a few bloody tooth marks on his legs. 

I whipped out my notes from the natural chicken keeping handbook I read earlier this year. This had recipes for treating chickens who had been traumatized by an animal attack and something to put on wounds. I figured if it works for chickens it'll work for baby goats. I had most of the essential oils on hand and the recipe whipped up quick. 

We shut the goats in the shed for the night so Jip could be loose and the goats wouldn't be afraid. I guess we'll have to keep Jip in the front yard for the time being until the kids get bigger.