# New eggs hatching NOW!



## bestinred (Mar 27, 2010)

I posted here awhile ago about my bird's first clutch. Unfortunately no babies successfully hatched from that clutch  When I removed the eggs from that clutch 4 were dead in shell. I believe the cold snap we had (getting down to 0C at nights and only up to 5C during the day for a few days) is what killed them. They all looked close to hatching. 

So my birds began laying immediately after I removed the eggs and today (exactly 18 days since the first was laid) the first egg began to pip!! I noticed the first pip about 10 hours ago and have just checked again to find that he/she is still hatching, very vocal and strong. I suspect I will have a baby in a few hours time. Fingers crossed! And.... there is another egg beginning to pip! This is egg number 2 (which is only 16 days since laid), I'm not expecting to see this baby until tomorrow. 

I'm going to be up all night so will keep you all updated on their progress!


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## D&J - SA (Sep 27, 2010)

great, good luck


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## bestinred (Mar 27, 2010)

There is one fluffy yellow baby! I checked at 10.30pm and the pip mark was larger, baby vocalising more and moving around but I still thought it was a while off actually hatching. But I just checked again (about 12.15am) and there he/she was!! Looking good, yolk sac all absorbed and seems like a strong little one. The other egg that has begun hatching is still going, pip/crack is a little larger so I'm expecting a baby in the morning. 

Just thought I'd add that there is 6 eggs in the nest, all appear fertile.

I'm off to bed now, if I can sleep!


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## lperry82 (Aug 2, 2010)

Fluffy yellow baby awwwww good luck


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## tielmom (Aug 4, 2010)

Awesome news...so happy to hear these babies are strong and hatching nicely...keep us posted


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

Congrats!!! It so amazing watching them hatch...


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## bestinred (Mar 27, 2010)

Chick number 2 hatched sometime early this morning (between 12am and 3.30am) and from what I can see has red eyes! Does anyone have a pic of a newly hatched chick with plum eyes compared to red eyes so I can tell if they are red or not? But I'm pretty sure they are! I'll try get a pic tomorrow.

Also just wanted to say that I am so proud of my birds, they are looking after their babies so well for first time parents


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## lperry82 (Aug 2, 2010)

awww well done mom and dad, i can only see cookies eyes at night


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

Before a red-eyed chick opens its eyes, the eyes will look the same color as the skin. It almost looks like the bird doesn't have eyes. I was freaked out when my first lutino chicks hatched. I didn't know Buster was split lutino and thought that the chicks might have been born blind.

Red eyes really don't have any color at all, and it's the light reflecting off the blood vessels that makes them look red when the eyes are open. Before the eyes are open the color doesn't show through the skin of the eyelid.

If you can see a darker color below the skin then the eyes are probably plum. If there's no color difference it's probably red, although there are some cinnamons with a very reddish plum that looks like lutino eyes.

This is Snowy and her three cinnamon clutchmates. My cinnamon chicks have dark plum eyes and I can't tell the difference between their eyes and the eyes of my normal grey chicks. Unfortunately Snowy's eyes aren't visible in this picture:









Here's a shot of a lutino and a normal grey chick together. You can see the shape of the lutino's eye but the color blends in with the skin.


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## bestinred (Mar 27, 2010)

Thankyou so much tielfan!! 

This chick definately has red eyes, look exactly like the little one in your pic. Which means Frankie must be split lutino I'm guessing, and this little one must be a female? He's visually pied and Marley's cinnamon. I love that I now know what he's split to! I got him as a stray bird, he was brought into my work with an injured eye and no one else wanted him. So glad I have him 

There is another egg with pip marks on it, it's the third one. I'll update again soon!


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

> Which means Frankie must be split lutino I'm guessing, and this little one must be a female


I'm going to say yes and yes. Fallow is also a red-eyed mutation but it's a lot less widespread than lutino. It's also an ordinary recessive gene so both parents would have to be split to it. If your baby turns out to have pale grey feathers instead of yellow white, then you have a fallow chick of unknown gender.


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## bestinred (Mar 27, 2010)

Third baby just hatched! I just peeked in the box in time to see the little one kick away the last of the egg! It looks to have darker eyes but I didn't get a good look because I wanted to leave them alone for awhile.


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

Congratulations!


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## tielmom (Aug 4, 2010)

Yay...congrats


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## Belinda (Oct 9, 2010)

awww I want to breed babies... but where do you find the time? haha...


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## lperry82 (Aug 2, 2010)

Yay congrats


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## dianaxgalvez (May 3, 2010)

Wooooaahhh ! 
You must be having so many excitements !
Congratulations


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## bestinred (Mar 27, 2010)

Here are a couple of pics. Sorry for the dodgy phone quality but my camera isn't cooperating...










This was taken yesterday, chick at the front is chick number 3 (plum eyes?), then chick number 1 (normal eyes), and then chick number 2 (red eyes).










This was taken just after chick number 3 hatched.


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## lperry82 (Aug 2, 2010)

on the 1st pic and the 1st teil is that the eyes as it looks big compared to others bless


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

I'm no expert on plum eyes, but I agree that chick #3 might have them! If that's the case, your daddy bird is split to lutino on one X and split to cinnamon on the other. Buster is like that too (plus a whiteface split). Since your hen is cinnamon, you'll be able to get both male and female cinnamon chicks. All your normal grey chicks will be male - you'll only get a female grey if there's a genetic crossover between cinnamon and lutino, and it's estimated that this happens only 3% of the time.


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## bestinred (Mar 27, 2010)

Fourth chick hatched this morning! Seems so tiny compared to the others, they're all growing so fast. It has the plum coloured eyes too (if that's what they actually are). Two eggs left to hatch.


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## bestinred (Mar 27, 2010)

A bit of sad news. I came home this afternoon to find the fifth egg had been cracked open. The chick inside was dead. But appeared to have white down?! So my birds are both split to whiteface too? Is this possible? 
Frankie is a pied split to lutino and whiteface?
Marley is a cinnamon split to whiteface?
One more egg left to hatch... The other four chicks are doing great! Chick 1 and 2 are just beginning to open their eyes and chick 1 has some grey colouring on his wings!


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

Yes it's possible for them to be split to a bunch of things! I have a pearl split to cinnamon and whiteface. Good luck with #6!


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## mpayjr (Aug 16, 2010)

I wish my other pair of birds would mate so much! One of them is spit to pearl and I would love having the fun of figuring all of the types of tiels they would have!


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

> Frankie is a pied split to lutino and whiteface?
> Marley is a cinnamon split to whiteface?


If I remember right, Frankie is the male. If you're getting cinnamon chicks, then he's split to cinnamon on one X, split to lutino on the other X, and also split whiteface. Which incidentally is the exact same combination of splits that Buster has.

If both parents are split whiteface then it's expected that 25% of the babies will be whiteface, which is pretty close to your actual results. I'm sorry that baby #5 didn't make it, but you have four strong healthy babies and that's great!


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## bestinred (Mar 27, 2010)

Haha yeah I completely forgot about the cinnamon! So Frankie is Pied split to lutino, split to cinnamon, split to whiteface. Wow!

All babies doing well! The first three have eyes open and baby 1 has a little crest happening! The 6th egg was due to hatch today and isn't showing any signs yet so we'll see about that one.


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

All your female chicks will be either cinnamon or lutino. All your male chicks will be either cinnamon or grey. Any of those chicks may or may not be whiteface.

If you get any pied babies it means your hen is split pied. You'd have an amazing array of color combinations then!


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## bestinred (Mar 27, 2010)

Well all the chicks are doing well. The sixth egg was DIS and so I removed it. The first little one looks like a possible pied so maybe Marley does have a pied split in there too! I will be pulling them from the nest tomorrow night to begin handraising. I was planning to leave them in there for a little longer but Marley has feathers missing from the back of her head and I suspect Frankie is doing some plucking so I would like to remove the babies before he starts on them too. I will post more pics in the next couple of days.


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