How Quickly Does Albendazole Work?

[thebdj]

Golddust has now completed 14 days on her eggs and I candled them for a second proper time last night. One was definitely infertile which was discarded at 10 days. Two more were in 'early stages' but long behind the three that were obviously thriving. I finally decided to discard them last night which was the correct decision.

 

So out of 6 eggs, 5 of which were fertile, my broody now only has 3 left. Even if she hatches all of them, that's only a 50% success rate. I have constantly had to amend her nest and move eggs back under her. She has been fairly poor at covering all of the eggs and that's not a size thing, it seems to be her being a bit rubbish and keep accidentally kicking them out.

 

Not sure if I am missing something here, and let me clarify two things. 1) I love her to bits so even if she is rubbish at brooding, I still love her 2) Even if she hatches only 1 chick, I hope she loves the chick and mothers it to the best of her ability, which I am sure she will ... but as regards being efficient, I am confident I would have done better with my incubator.

[Guest]

I would guess its hormonal (or the chicken equivalent) - if the hormones really kick in the hen will do a good job, if they get less of a dose then the instinct is not as strong.

Rue was brilliant and did everything to the book. She plucked her breast, then declined to leave the nest. I built a broody coop and moved her onto the eggs from Ebay in that and she was rock solid. She left them for almost exactly 20 minutes each day for her constitutional, hatched them on day 21 and was a great mother. Five weeks later the hormones are obviously declining and her breast feathers are growing, she started to crouch in the middle of last week, and laid an egg again on Friday. She is still sleeping with the chicks in the broody coop, although she enjoys a run around in the garden with the big girls for a couple of hours a day. The chicks do not seem distressed by that either. Nature is taking is course!

If she became broody again I wouldn't be surprised if it was quite a different story...

 

I have to say that reading about experiences with incubators on here, I do feel I have had it easy - Rue did all the work!

[Griffin]

It's not necessarily her fault that the eggs aren't all developing. It's the end of the season, the eggs might not be as good quality as they would earlier in the year, the weather has got a lot colder too. Just because an egg is fertile doesn't mean it'll grow to full term, much of that is down to the parent birds. Tiger Lily had a 50% hatch rate with her Poland & Brahma eggs three weeks ago. I don't think you can expect much better at this time of year.

[thebdj]

2 good posts methinks.

 

In fairness to Golddust I think she actually is extremely good and I am being harsh on her. I didn't even notice the plucked breast until you said which she appears to have done. She also leaves the nest for 20 mins each day and is 'absolutely solid' as you put it. She just seems to shuffle the eggs out to the side a lot. Even went in there tonight after work and there was one quite cold poking out from behind her!

 

Also totally neglected to take into account the weather or the time of year. I think maybe because my first outing with the incubator was quite successful, it has rather tarnished the reality of the difficulty of hatching.

 

Will go and give Golddust an apology