6th Annual BYC New Year's Day 2015 Hatch-A-Long

[gilchicken]

What do you guys think is wrong with her eyes? .. this is the same that has
spraddle legs... I been using vitamin water to clean it up but I was wondering if I can use an ointment to make it better. .

Help!

 

[ronott1]

I now have 6 Trader Joes chicks out. I will get pictures of the first four soon.

 

[hennible]

What do you guys think is wrong with her eyes? .. this is the same that has
spraddle legs... I been using vitamin water to clean it up but I was wondering if I can use an ointment to make it better. .

Help!

Could be deformed....

 

[LittleRedCoop53]

Here is chick #1 and 2... mix of Frizzle silkie Roo and a EE hen ....still hatching

 

[gilchicken]

Could be deformed....

her eyes were ok when she hatched.. it started yesterday. . And I was able to clean it and she opened them. . But today is not really looking good

 

[jbenson]

Hi, everyone! I've run into a bit of a problem, and I need your advice.

I woke up this morning to check on my hatcher and noticed that my last egg (a couple days late now) had cracked. Upon further inspection, I noticed blood around what "looked" like an external pip hole. I probably did something wrong here, and opened a hole at the top of the air cell to get a look down into what was going on. It appears that the chick MAY have pipped and then been kicked into another egg (I still have a "dud" in there that was too dark for my little candling experience), or the side of the incubator by movement from the other chicks.

So what I have now is... a baby chick inside of a cracked egg. There is a small pool of blood around its beak where it looks like there was some impact. I wet the membrane with warm water and a Q-Tip, wrapped it in a moist paper towel, and turned the egg so that its beak is at the highest point. I figured that if there was any fluid or excess blood, having the beak raised up would help keep the fluids from pooling around it?

The membrane is broken at the site of the pip/crack. The baby chick appears to be "gasping" or taking very deliberate, heavy breaths. It is not making a sound... only big, deliberate breathing. I find this alarming, because I have not witness this kind of "hatch behavior" before, but I also lack a lot of experience...so maybe this is normal?

I want to remove more shell from the top to get a better look at what's going on, but I probably shouldn't meddle?

I have removed the active chicks and put them into the brooder. Humidity and temp are holding perfectly.

I would leave it for a while and wait to see what happens. The blood veins need to recede before you can do any helping or the chick might bleed out. Also, it probably has yolk left to absorb at this point. I had one like this. Pipped right on the side of the egg in the middle. It didn't hit a blood vein, but it was unable to zip. I just made sure the beak was clear of membrane so it could breathe and put it back in the 'bator. It never could zip and I had to help the next day. Humidity for me by then had gone way up due to so many other chicks hatching that this little fella was struggling. I was able to take enough shell off and peel back the membrane and get the head out so it could breathe, but I left it sitting upright in the shell just in case it needed to absorb more yolk. It never did get itself out of the egg. I had to take it out later that day because it was getting stuck to the remaining membrane and was getting glued in. Alas, it was too weak and didn't make it. Just as well, it looks like with the humidity spike and the time spent trying to hatch, it's feet had gotten a bit deformed and my experience with poorly shaped feet is they never really get their feet under them and eventually starve, which is also sad. I will bury this little one with it's sibling who pulled out it's intestines because it had a bit of unabsorbed yolk. It's best not to help and not to remove much shell when there is blood veins in the membrane. Otherwise you risk bleeding issues or membrane drying out.

 

[ronott1]

Could be deformed....

Hopefully the eyes are there.

What do you guys think is wrong with her eyes? .. this is the same that has
spraddle legs... I been using vitamin water to clean it up but I was wondering if I can use an ointment to make it better. .

Help!

Start with a moistened Q tip to see if you can get the eye lid open. You can use ointment.

 

[gilchicken]

Hopefully the eyes are there.
Start with a moistened Q tip to see if you can get the eye lid open. You can use ointment.

What kind of ointment? .

 

[jbenson]

What kind of ointment? .

I've used vitamin E ointment on my birds with great success. I had a chick get part of it's scalp ripped off by one of the larger birds my first year integrating new chicks - I took it in the house and put vitamin E on daily for about a week and it healed up nicely. She's part of my flock to this day.

 

[ronott1]

What kind of ointment? .

Regular eye ointment--just now pain killer. Vetericyn makes one for chickens.

I've used vitamin E ointment on my birds with great success. I had a chick get part of it's scalp ripped off by one of the larger birds my first year integrating new chicks - I took it in the house and put vitamin E on daily for about a week and it healed up nicely. She's part of my flock to this day.

Good idea!