Help!

[Enya2000]

Hello everyone, I just signed up because I need your help.
I have had a first go at incubating quail eggs! So far 5 have hatched out of 20, they are all healthy except for one day started hatching on day 19 and couldn’t get out of the shell two days later, it was completely open but couldn’t get it’s bum out. So I took it out and self hatched it, and it has a hernia thing coming out it’s bum, I thought it was going to die, but I held it in a hot room for a while and dabbed some honey on its hernia, now the next day it’s fine, and it’s pulled it back inside almost fully, and it’s walking around ect.. but the day before I had to help another hatch and it’s shell was full of poop and it had a really bad hernia as well, unfortunately it died in the night. So on day 21 there was still 13 eggs that hadn’t hatched. So I decided to view it as a lost cause and break them all open. Sooo sad, 9 of the eggs had chicks inside that all had hernias and lots of in absorbed gold sacks, and some were green. I really need to know why this had happened?!?! The chicks were all not even breathing when I opened the eggs, and some were still tiny foetuses on day 21?? But they where supposedly laid the same day.
Any help at all would be so great.
Thanks all.

Enya

 

[Little Jerry Seinfeld]

Hi, im sorry for the sad hatch!
It sounds like mushy chick disease, which I have had happen when my incubator temps are too high, i also have treated with honey and or neosporin on the navel, if its bad,(very unabsorbed yolk) i treat by applying honey, (if it is dirty dabbing with witch hazel first) and with vet wrap, the stretchy self sticking bandaid stuff you get at walmart in the pet or human aisles, tightly bundling the chick back into an egg position for 4 hours, and putting into a small container so he cannot roll around and keeping in the corner of the incubator until it has absorbed enough to be loose and giving a couple drops of chick vitamins mixed with a drop of molasses, in water, by dropper, very very carefully, it is so easy to drown a chick! Giving it two or 3 drops every 1 to 2 hours, And checking on it every 4 hours to see if it can be free yet or not. Sometimes i will feed it a little egg yolk with tweezers placed on is tongue and massaging their throat, you must be very careful if you attempt to manually feed and water chicks as they are easy to drown or smother on the food.
And most chicks like this will either not make it, or can develop other problems like curled toes and splayed legs. I have not had this happen to my quail, but to some chicken chicks on occasions, anytime i had a quail born like this it died very quickly.
(Plus they are not good to keep for breeding anyway.)

Here is the link about mushy chick disease. And again, so sorry you had this happen!

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/mushy-chick-disease-yolk-sack-infection-omphalitis.64686/

 

[Little Jerry Seinfeld]

Also the tiny undeveloped chicks you saw must have died sometime in the hatch, likely a week to a few days before hatch as the disease seems kills chicks during the last week of development. When a normal chick starts to hatch it is important to wait to let them come out on their own as sometimes they have not quite finished absorbing the yolk yet, or absorbing the blood from the veins lining the shell, and if you rip the membrane when its full of the veins still , they will bleed alot and get weak, usually die... that and other reasons is why it is advised not to assist hatches. I am NOT saying this was your fault, i do think they had mushy chick disease just was saying why its not a good idea to assist in most cases...

The green you saw was the bacteria infection that gets into the yolk. The poop you saw could have been that or could have been the normal first poop they make, or more of the infection.

Pics would help too.

 

[cmom]

I have never hatched out Quail but have done Pheasants in the past. I have never dealt with mushy chick disease. I learned something new today. I did have a chick hatch several years ago with it's insides outside. It lived a couple of days.

 

[Enya2000]

Also the tiny undeveloped chicks you saw must have died sometime in the hatch, likely a week to a few days before hatch as the disease seems kills chicks during the last week of development. When a normal chick starts to hatch it is important to wait to let them come out on their own as sometimes they have not quite finished absorbing the yolk yet, or absorbing the blood from the veins lining the shell, and if you rip the membrane when its full of the veins still , they will bleed alot and get weak, usually die... that and other reasons is why it is advised not to assist hatches. I am NOT saying this was your fault, i do think they had mushy chick disease just was saying why its not a good idea to assist in most cases...

The green you saw was the bacteria infection that gets into the yolk. The poop you saw could have been that or could have been the normal first poop they make, or more of the infection.

Pics would help too.

Hi, thank you so much, I will attach some pictures. This chick died but it’s egg was full of poop, and had a big hard white lump on the side of the inside shell that was attached to him. Anyway here is some photos, I didn’t photo any of the other chicks because it was to upsetting

 

[Enya2000]

I have never hatched out Quail but have done Pheasants in the past. I have never dealt with mushy chick disease. I learned something new today. I did have a chick hatch several years ago with it's insides outside. It lived a couple of days.

Thanks for your help, that sounds very strange. I am hatching bantams now, so I hope that doesn’t happen

 

[cmom]

It's rare and only happened to me once but it was several years ago.

 

[Little Jerry Seinfeld]

Yes looks like an unabsorbed yolk sack, which may or may not have also had the bacteria infection. So sorry, it is so sad when the little chicks die.