1st hatch not developed?

[BJS]

I just hatched my first egg from my own hen and rooster. We started out with 2 (the incubator holds only 3 eggs) but one never developed and was discarded around day 10. The other hatched on day 21 but the chick has yellowish stringy stuff hanging out its back end. It was attached to the membrane. Is this normal - should I remove this stuff - is this some known condition?

It is just hours old but is moving around and chirping. Not eating or drinking yet -still working on standing but can hold itself upright and scramble around.

Thank you.

 

[FenDruadin]

Hello and congrats! The stringy stuff is not ideal--it usually indicates a problem during incubation--but if the chick is up and moving around, it's probably going to be just fine. Go ahead and remove anything that comes off easily, which will probably be most of it. The rest you can leave unless it causes the chick problems (like getting caught on things). The danger is that if it gets caught on stuff and pulled, it can pull the chick's insides out (it's basically the remains of the umbilical cord, so it's attached through the belly button to the chick's internal organs). If that looks like it might happen, you can snip it off near the chick's belly with very sharp scissors. Just watch carefully to make sure it doesn't bleed, but if it's stringy and been a few hours, it shouldn't bleed. If it does, pinch the end tightly for a few minutes until the bleeding stops.

Good luck! And, you're going to need to get the chick a friend... single chicks are lonely and don't do well..

 

[BJS]

Thanks for the quick response. We'll be adding some purchased chicks as well so it won't be alone. There was no bleeding upon removal of the material. What sort of incubation problem would cause this? I have a very small inexpensive incubator. The egg was turned by hand 2-3 times/ day. I had no way to measure humidity and suspect it fluctuated somewhat.

 

[BJS]

2 days after the mini-surgery, the chick appears to be doing fine, active, eating, drinking, peeping... Looks undersized, but otherwise healthy. Thanks again for the advice.

 

[FenDruadin]

Aw! What a cutie! I'm glad to hear the little guy is fine. It is not at all uncommon to have that stuff still attached, and he will probably never have any problems from it.

Those small incubators are rarely able to hold temps completely stable, plus the humidity being too high or too low can cause problems. It seems like your baby is mostly just fine, though, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. If you decide to hatch more in the future, you'll probably want to get a thermostat/hygrometer combo from Walmart (about $8) to measure your humidity and also record temp ranges, so you can see if your temp is fluctuating.

However, it's also possible for minor "problems" like the one you had to be caused by genetics, luck, whatever. Since you only had one chick, it's impossible to say whether it was incubation or just that particular chick.

The important thing is: Congratulations! You have a very pretty little chickie there.