assisted hatch chick

[niffles]

Hatcht day was today for my button quail. All the eggs were piped last night and all but one eggs had hatchef by the time I went to work. When i got home and the egg had not hatched I looked on the forum and found the assisted hatch post. I followed the directions and found the inner membrane was dried out and stuck to the poor chick. After. 10 minutes of carefully wetting and pulling away the membrane most of the chick was out of the egg so I put him back in the bator in the hoprs he would free himself. Unfortunatly, after an hour he was still curled in his egg and seemed to be weakening. I turned the shell over and he popped right out. I left him to dry and he seems to be doing ok, but his toes are curled, the shape of his head looks strange to me (maybe because he is sticky?) and he isnt very active. Im starting to think maybe he wasnt meant to hatch for a reason, and by assisting him I am prolonging his suffering and even encouraging weak genes in my quail. Im not sure he will survive and I dont know how to fix his tiny feet

 

[Bad Wolf]

I am sorry to hear about your chick. In my experience, assisted hatching doesn't always work out well for these sweet little ones. I have an assisted hatch hen that is blind.. well, almost blind. She started out the same way you explained yours to be. For her sake, I wish I didn't 'assist' and just let nature take its course. It's so hard to know when to help and when to leave it alone (at least for me).

I hope someone else might jump in and give you better insight.

 

[wolfandfinch]

Did the chick perk up at all?