The Chick or the Egg, Things I have learned

Night Owl

I have had an incubator now for about a year and by trial and error I have learned a few things.  I thought I would share.

1. Wash your eggs with dish soap.  Without cleaning with a anti microbial soap I had very low hatch rates.  But when I wash the eggs with dish soap then rinse well I had super good hatch rates for example 29 out of 33 eggs last week.
2. When hatching mixed batches of duck and chicken eggs put your duck eggs in the icubator 1 week before the chicken eggs.  I killed my first batch of duck eggs when the chicken eggs hatched and I had the incubator open.
3. I put a cup of water in the incubator for increased humidity.  When they are hatching if they do not get out quick then the membrane drys and effectively locks them in the egg.  The added humidity slows that drying process.  The humidity trays in the bottom of the incubator are not enough.
4. Chicks can wear themselves out trying to hatch thru a hard egg shell!!!  Some chicks just pop right out a few minutes after they break thru with the first hole.  Others can lag on for hours with that inside membrane drying and then die before they can hatch.  At first I was afraid to "help" them and I had several half hatched chicks die.  Now my rule is if they have a hole open to air for more than 4 hours then I break a line with my thumb nail all the way around the end of the egg just like when they do it naturally.  Then the chick can stretch and pop out comes the chick.  They do not bleed this way and they survive well.  I lost one this last week out of 29 hatched chicks.
5. Ducks drop their eggs all over.  It is like an easter egg hunt every day around here.  It is like they are walking, drop and egg and keep on walking.  I have found duck eggs in the strangest of places!!!
6. The poultry industry has worked with genetics to get big eggs, big breasts etc but they have done gone and bred all of the brains right out of chickens.  They will NOT go broody to save my life or theirs!!!  If anybody has any ideas on how to kick start them then please share.....
7. Eggs make great balls!!!   Just ask our Pug!!!!!
8. Pigs will do anything for an egg.  Including walk straight across a field to go get in the stock trailer.  Poor Pork Chop had no idea where that stock trailer was then going to!!!  We get him back from the butcher today or tomorrow and are planning a ham dinner in celebration of his home coming!!!  He was our first to raise and get off to the butcher...  He was 240lbs on the hoof and dressed out at 173lbs....

Baby Birds like BBQ sauce

Yesterday was Labor day as we all know and we had a BBQ and invited friends and family.  This morning was clean up the mess time....  While I was washing dishes I had a cookie sheet that my husband had cooked the ribs on.  The BBQ sauce was caked and burnt on 1/4 of an inch thick, so I set it out the back door for the dogs figuring I could wash it and sanitize it after they had scraped the worst off.  Well it ended up that the dog was run off of it by a bunch of 6 week old baby Guinea's and Chicks.  I snapped this picture thru my glass door.....

Quack and Babes... update

Two of the babies survived.  It rained all day and qhack had them out in it.  I saw her actually using her bill to try and push the babes into a puddle.  One of them had gotten so wet and cold that she left it and when I saw her their was only one with her.  Husband and I searched and finally found the little one soaking wet, cold and near death.  We brought it in and warmed it in the incubator.

Husband and I talked about it and decided that an intervention was needed to save the other one that was still with her.  So we wnt out and he distracted her while I snatched the babe.

It was wet by then so into the incubator for warming it went.

This morning both babes are fine and fluffy......  Sometimes children just have to be removed from the home.....

Quack and babes

I have a duck.  Her mate was killed about 8 months ago and I had not got replacements until the day olds came 4 weeks ago.  3 1/2 weeks ago my one and only got broody.  Maybe because we had gotten the shipment of day old baby ducks, I have no idea.  But the long and short of it was that she was sitting on a nest of very infertile eggs.  I did not have the heart to let her sit and they never hatch.  So the switcheroo got pulled and I replaced her bad eggs with 8 fertile chicken eggs.

Yesterday they began to hatch.  I know because I found a black one out of the nest half hatched.  I guess it got stuck to her feathers.  I peeled the hardened shell and membrane off of it and put it back in the nest.  When she came back she found the baby and now this morning more have hatched.  Quack is super tame but now she hisses and trys to bite anyone that gets near her babies...

I was able to get a couple pictures

In this one you can see the little black one that I had rescued:

I am not sure how this is going to work when they wont swim with her, but for now she is one proud and happy momma duck!

Eggs: To Wash or not to Wash... That is the question

In response to several comments when my article about egg preservation hit Modern Survival Blog I am writing 2 posts one on washing Vs Non-washing of eggs.  Many people THINK that if you have clean nest boxes you do not have to wash your eggs.  This is not true!!  No matter how clean your nest boxes or no matter that you have 20 boxes for your hens to lay in you still have a good chance of either Salmonella or E. Coli.  There are a number of research papers floating around the net to help you understand.  I will recite a few though and hopefully the information will help everyone to be safer in handling fresh eggs.

Remember that harmful pathogens (bacteria) invisible to the naked eye.  This means that you can have harmfull pathogens covering everything in your kitchen and you would have no way of knowing it unless you cultured the surfaces.  Bacteria can be introduced to another surface just by touching the contaminated item to the other surface.  This is cross contamination.  Then if you touch something else like your hand or a towel to that contaminated surface then that item becomes infected.  In turn anything that any ionfected item comes into contact with then also becomes infected.  The amount of infected items grows exponetially.  So if you bring in your beautiful eggs and lay them on your counter while you fix a place in your fridge then pick them up you have contaminated your counter and your hands.  If you did not wash your hands before touching the handle on your fridge you have potentially contaminated the fridge handle and those bacteria can be transferred to anyone elses hands that touches the fridge and then everything that they in turn touch.

Salmonella can live inside and outside the chicken.  Not just inside the intestines.  It can actually be carried on the feet and on the feathers of the chicken.  It does not magically only appear in feces and not be anywhere else.  Here is an excerpt from the CDC that shows it can live on the feathers and the feet:
Live poultry may have Salmonella germs in their droppings and on their bodies (feathers, feet, and beaks) even when they appear healthy and clean. The germs can also get on cages, coops, hay, plants, and soil in the area where the birds live and roam. Additionally, the germs can be found on the hands, shoes, and clothing of those who handle the birds or work or play where they live and roam. http://www.cdc.gov/Features/SalmonellaPoultry/

Now lets think about this information... A chicken may have salmonella on its feathers when it sits on the nest those feathers are touching the nest and no matter how clean it looks it is still contaminated.  My chickens all have a favorite nest.  There are 6 nests and only two ever have eggs in them.  So then the next chicken gets into the nest and that chicken gets it on their feathers and on and on.  Guess what has happened to those beautiful "clean" eggs that are also in that nest.

It can also actually live in the Ova of a chicken Here is an excerpt from a documented research:
Salmonella were isolated from the ceca of 161 chickens, the cecal tonsils of 148 chickens, the organ pool of 150 chickens, and the ovary-oviduct pool of 110 chickens.  Avian Diseases © 1993 American Association of Avian Pathologists

This means that the salmonella was present in the ovaries of the chickens prior to it laying an egg.  This in turn means that the egg was contaminated with salmonella no matter how clean it looks to the naked eye.

Salmonella is not a problem only in commercial chickens.  If it is a live chicken then the chance of salmonella is there no matter what kind of chicken or where it lives.

There are literally hundreds of research papers with scientific evidence documenting the need to wash eggs.  I use antibacterial dish soap to wash mine as it is effective and non-toxic.  You must replace the bloom that you wash off in order for the eggs to keep. I use mineral oil. 

The old adage of it's better to be safe than sorry fits here....  Especcialy in a survive or die situation where medical treatment may not be readilly available.