Had a wretched afternoon. I have eggs in the hatcher (which is like an incubator, but specific to the last three days, when they're about to hatch), including some from DD#1s favorite Silkie, Luna. Luna is White, the only White one we have, and the male I have in with her is a Splash, again, the only Splash I have. He's been sick of late (with "limberneck", a neurological condition caused by brain injury from bonking his silly head.) I don't know if he's going to recover or not, so hatching those eggs sired by him if I can is very important to me.
But so far I've not been able to get any of Luna's eggs to hatch, for whatever reason. This hatch I had three in there, which isn't many. One has hatched (yay!) and I think will be a White (maybe a Splash, hard to tell right now.) There was a second egg that had pipped, and was about ready to pop out, but then seemed to get stuck, and went no further (the hatcher has a plexiglass front so I can watch what's going on in the trays, if I use a flashlight.)
I watched this egg all afternoon. But did I check the humidity levels? Noooo, that would have been too bloody smart. And the damned thing ran out of water and the levels got much too low. The poor chick was stuck, and damn it, died.
Perfectly formed chick, seemingly a White, dead in the shell (I snatched it out quickly so as not to loose too much of the humidity I had sprayed back in there.) ((sigh)) I'm so mad at myself. It was a stupid mistake, and of course, it's always the ones we want the most which seem to have problems, not the expendable ones.
Lesson learned, be more vigilant about the humidity. But it just makes me sad, and mad, and sorry for the poor thing. Let's hope the third egg hatches after all (no sign as of yet.)
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