FA+
Shop
Nature is mean
9 years ago
General
I lost 2 chicks this round, which as awful as it sounds is not bad since I hatched more than 20 and losses are to be expected when dealing with something as fragile as baby birds.
Both losses are new to me, I have been keeping chickens for 20 years and have lost hatches in the past but not like this.
I lost one to being stepped on and crushed in its egg before it could hatch again, this is the third case, and in the past I have never had this problem. I believe I have narrowed down the problem to egg shape, they have all been almost completely round eggs thus lacking nature's proper design for strength.
From what I can tell with the second chick, it appears to have died because as it rotated to "unzip" the shell it angled itself wrong, blocking its air hole, and suffocated before it could peck a new one... I have never seen this before and it has me saying "WTF nature! Why are you so friggen mean???" seriously how could this chick sabotage itself like that D:
Both losses have me a little sad, but in both cases I found the chick too late to help so I lack the guilty conscious that made me cry loosing that one crushed egg chick after being its nursemaid for so many hours believing it would be okay.
As sad as it is to loose chicks like this, which each new loss I know what to look for in the future to prevent more dreadful outcomes :)
And with this sad news out of the way, expect a picture of the pile of surviving chicks to be posted by the end of the day :D
Both losses are new to me, I have been keeping chickens for 20 years and have lost hatches in the past but not like this.
I lost one to being stepped on and crushed in its egg before it could hatch again, this is the third case, and in the past I have never had this problem. I believe I have narrowed down the problem to egg shape, they have all been almost completely round eggs thus lacking nature's proper design for strength.
From what I can tell with the second chick, it appears to have died because as it rotated to "unzip" the shell it angled itself wrong, blocking its air hole, and suffocated before it could peck a new one... I have never seen this before and it has me saying "WTF nature! Why are you so friggen mean???" seriously how could this chick sabotage itself like that D:
Both losses have me a little sad, but in both cases I found the chick too late to help so I lack the guilty conscious that made me cry loosing that one crushed egg chick after being its nursemaid for so many hours believing it would be okay.
As sad as it is to loose chicks like this, which each new loss I know what to look for in the future to prevent more dreadful outcomes :)
And with this sad news out of the way, expect a picture of the pile of surviving chicks to be posted by the end of the day :D
if it'll help, 2 Gryphon has a thing on how mean nature can be: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/3716472/
At my favorite zoo they have a group of free ranging ring-tailed lemurs. I go there very often so some of the animals have gotten used to me and they always come very close.
On the 15th one of them got twins! https://www.furaffinity.net/view/19431295/
When I was there Friday morning everything was fine. But in the afternoon, after I left, they killed one of the little ones and the other one lost a foot :c The adults must have gotten into a fight and the babies got hurt as well.
And today the other one died... They were fighting over who was next to groom it and it fell down.
I was looking forward to take pictures of them growing up Q_Q
Like with every litter of foster kittens, when they are at their wandering bumbling idiot infant stage I am just like "how do any of these survive outside???" it is so easy for them to get lost, or cold, or eaten, or fall down a hole or ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Help a moth out of its cocoon, and it will never fly, It needs the near death struggle of escaping its cocoon to strengthen its wings.