Intervention: Helping Your Chicks Hatch

[kallan]

I had my first hatch this past Monday and had to assist a chick that had only put a tiny crack in the egg and stopped progressing. The humidity was low in the incubator and it must have dried the membrane and shrink wrapped the poor chick. I noticed the crack around 12pm that day...could have been sooner, I was working outside. I gave it until around 3:30pm before I chipped a good size hole for it to get its beak through to breathe. He never started to zip on his own, so by 8pm, I started removing more shell and noticed how dry the membrane was so I kept moistening it. Still struggling, around 10pm, I made the decision to remove some of the membrane so he could free himself. By then, the blood vessels were mostly absorbed. The last picture was taken at 2 days old. He's a LF Standard Cochin. I think I will name him/her "King", my first one, born on Martin Luther King Day. The other 3 eggs never pipped, but were very far along. Maybe I could have helped them? I am enjoying this little one, but he needs a playmate. He is enjoying the cat bell toys, etc. and eating and drinking very well. I am so glad I assisted him!!!

Made a breathing hole....

Membrane still intact.....

After I removed more membrane, he unfurled himself.

Not much head room in these bators.......

Took him out of the bator early, since the bator was so wet by then....

I love you, too......

"King" at 2 days old.....

 

[Mattok1]

^ This is awesome! Great job and fantastic pics Thanks for sharing!

 

[maryjrain]

I had to help a chick out 2 days ago. Had been pipped for over 24 hours. I made the crack bigger at first, an hpur later, no luck. I took the top off the egg- there was a little blood, but it just could not get out of the membrane- i finally just got all the membrane off. Two days later, it's just fine and hanging out in the brooder being feisty. I think it all just depends on the chick .

 

[RooRidgeFarm]

I had my first hatch this past Monday and had to assist a chick that had only put a tiny crack in the egg and stopped progressing. The humidity was low in the incubator and it must have dried the membrane and shrink wrapped the poor chick. I noticed the crack around 12pm that day...could have been sooner, I was working outside. I gave it until around 3:30pm before I chipped a good size hole for it to get its beak through to breathe. He never started to zip on his own, so by 8pm, I started removing more shell and noticed how dry the membrane was so I kept moistening it. Still struggling, around 10pm, I made the decision to remove some of the membrane so he could free himself. By then, the blood vessels were mostly absorbed. The last picture was taken at 2 days old. He's a LF Standard Cochin. I think I will name him/her "King", my first one, born on Martin Luther King Day. The other 3 eggs never pipped, but were very far along. Maybe I could have helped them? I am enjoying this little one, but he needs a playmate. He is enjoying the cat bell toys, etc. and eating and drinking very well. I am so glad I assisted him!!!

Made a breathing hole....

Membrane still intact.....

After I removed more membrane, he unfurled himself.

Not much head room in these bators.......

Took him out of the bator early, since the bator was so wet by then....

I love you, too......

"King" at 2 days old.....

Hi, Your chick is beautiful

and you did a good job helping it out! As far as the others being very developed but not hatching...that is a bit tricky. You would have needed to candle the eggs to see if they had pipped into the air cell. The more familiar you get with the incubation process, the easier it is to clearly see when they have internally pipped. If you see the internal pip into the air cell, you time it (wait about 6/12 hours or so) and then you would have to pip the shell yourself. In any case, I think you did great!

 

[RooRidgeFarm]

I had to help a chick out 2 days ago. Had been pipped for over 24 hours. I made the crack bigger at first, an hpur later, no luck. I took the top off the egg- there was a little blood, but it just could not get out of the membrane- i finally just got all the membrane off. Two days later, it's just fine and hanging out in the brooder being feisty. I think it all just depends on the chick

.

Great job! It's a super sense of satisfaction when we are able to help them out and not lose them in their shells. The humidity level where I am is soooo low right now that I suspect there will be a lot of helping mine that are in the incubator. Your chick looks healthy and happy

 

[andieschicks]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/step-by-step-guide-to-assisted-hatching

Until I ran across this thread, the link above was the one I have as my quick go-to for how to do this.

My first hatch should start hatching today, another hatching the 30th, and another 2 Feb 6th! Buuuuut I just want to make sure that if I need to assist any of the 3 I have all the right pages bookmarked and easy to open. I've noticed a lot of people in this thread say you should start assisting around 6 hours or so, but this one says don't assist until much later. Which is it?

Congrats on all of the successful assists I have seen in here! Makes me much more confident that I can do it if I need to! (and all the pictures are just beautiful! Makes me even more excited for my first hatch!)

 

[kallan]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/step-by-step-guide-to-assisted-hatching

Until I ran across this thread, the link above was the one I have as my quick go-to for how to do this.

My first hatch should start hatching today, another hatching the 30th, and another 2 Feb 6th! Buuuuut I just want to make sure that if I need to assist any of the 3 I have all the right pages bookmarked and easy to open. I've noticed a lot of people in this thread say you should start assisting around 6 hours or so, but this one says don't assist until much later. Which is it?

Congrats on all of the successful assists I have seen in here! Makes me much more confident that I can do it if I need to! (and all the pictures are just beautiful! Makes me even more excited for my first hatch!)

I am sure every case is different, but I was running my incubator pretty dry and was only going to up the humidity when I saw pipping. I upped the humidity When I saw the hairline crack in the egg, I raised the humidity, but the damage was done and it never progressed, so felt I needed to assist....I created this unnatural hatching environment. The membrane was so tight and drying to the point that he could not move at all to free himself no matter how much moisture I added. I did keep my eye on his breathing. When he started to breathe rapidly, I knew I had to do something.

Good luck on your hatch and keep us updated!

 

[kallan]

Thanks, RooRidgeFarms!

I share the birth of this little one with a lady I bought a few chickens from recently. She was availabe by email for over 10 hours....a midwife for sure! I ran everything through her before I proceeded and some of her suggestions gave me more insight into what may actually be going on with the chick. But, when it comes down to it, you have to make the decision whether to intervene. Since we are not mother hens, I think this type of intervention is probably pretty common in small backyard flocks today.

 

[dekel18042]

What did you do about the membrane? Right now I have one out of the egg, still wet but it looks like he has an umbilical cord (membrane?) stuck to the egg. What should I do?

 

[andieschicks]

Thanks kallan for the tips! Hopefully I won't have to help but that def makes it make more sense.

So I have a home-made incubator with a tiny window built in, but it's a top-down view so if they pip on the bottom I might not see it. Were you opening your incubator and looking at the eggs to see if they had started piping? Should I check every now-and-then just to see if there IS any progress or if there is any need for help that I can't see from above? I could have sworn I heard a different sound about 30 min ago, but when I looked nothing seemed different so I assumed it was just excitement making me hear things.