- Mar 21, 2014
- 52
- 1
- 38
This was my first time hatching eggs and with a "cooler bator".
I faced a lot of issues with it in the beginning. Temp spikes & drops, plus some humidity issues. At the end, though- with the 4 eggs left, everything was stable.
This post is just for sharing experience (especially since I am a newbie) that will hopefully be useful to others if faced with this particular problem I am about to share.
The first egg that pipped did so on the small end of the egg (no air cell there). It DID hit a blood vessel and I saw some small bits of blood on the outer membrane.
Since I could see the beak, hear peeps and saw movement I left it alone for several hours. It had pipped around 1 or 2 pm. I watched carefully through the observation window throughout the day and night. By 12:30 am my gut told me to remove the egg and look closer since I could no longer see the beak and there were no more pips. I could hear urgent peeping and still see skin & wet feathers moving as it breathed.
I put a head lamp on, got a hot wet paper towel, a hot bowl of water, a blanket and went to investigate. I placed the bowl in the floor, draped the blanket over me and bowl as I kneeled on the ground and wrapped the egg in the paper towel. My goal was to keep the humidity up to not shrink wrap the chick. I started with tweezers where the outer membrane was dry, white and cracking. I carefully pulled pieces of the shell off the outer membrane and looked in the fairly large pip for the beak. I dipped a q-tip in the hot water to moisten the membrane and see better. A bit of blood was seen from a knicked blood vessel and I took a dry q-tip and pressed it in the spot to stop the bleed. I wrapped the egg in the paper towel and put in the incubator for another hour.
I came back and repeated my process (under a blanket) and just worked on the SHELL. I kept the membrane moist and listened for chirps to find the beak's location. The chick had tried to turn its head to the large end of the egg but was stuck in the center from it's leg blocking the large end and couldn't push past it's leg. From the moistened membrane I could see the blood vessels. There were no active vessels near the beak so I tore a small hole with the tweezers over the beak and pushed the membrane down past the nostrils so chick could breathe. I placed it back in the incubator for 30 more mins. Half the egg was open at this point (if you were to stand egg up on fat end so small end pointed up and cut it from the small point downward to the fat end in half) and the egg was a small bowl holding the chick. When I saw the blood vessels get very thin and shrink wrapping starting to occur, I removed the egg again (back under the blanket) and released its head and right leg to try and view the yolk. I eventually pulled the top of the membrane down around the egg to release half the chicks body. I could see the yolk not fully absorbed. It looked like there was flesh around the yolk (a membrane) but there were no feathers and you could clearly see the skin around it as it was absorbing.
I placed the chick + shell back in the incubator, with a wet paper towel under it and against the side of the temp/humidity gage so it could push against it with its right leg as it absorbed the yolk. I did research as I sat next to the incubator to keep an eye on the chick. I found literature that explained the peeps of the chick while hatching to determine what process the chick is in. It was DEAD ON! As a chick absorbs the yolk it will peep very rapidly and loud and will shake the egg. The chick pushes with its legs & peeps as the yolk absorbs - since the egg was open I actually got to visually see it and the yolk moving into the body! When a chick is softly peeping and still- it's absorbing all the blood from its vessels. Again, I had watched that before I helped with the membrane.
It was about 2am when I had released the membrane and by 10 am or so the yolk was almost done absorbing. So, I turned the chick onto its belly/legs with egg shell still attached to the yolk. By 11 am the shell came off and a small bit of the yolk (tip) was visible and the "umbilical cord" was hanging off it's belly. Around 12 pm- the 2nd chick that had hatched (at 4 am) was very active and pecked off the assisted chick's umbilical cord. I looked at it's belly and all was well - not fully closed but no yolk visible.
Egg after it pipped :
(I tried drawing as best as I could in my phone app- hope it makes sense! The drawing is to show where the head was and leg was under the membrane BEFORE I removed it and the purple dot is to show the pip spot )
It took over 24 hours for this assisted chick (now named: Lucky) to gain strength to stand and walk around. Lucky slept almost the whole past 24 hours (so did the other chicks, but they were a bit more active). Lucky is now healthy and happy
eating, drinking and moving around.
Lucky today:
I faced a lot of issues with it in the beginning. Temp spikes & drops, plus some humidity issues. At the end, though- with the 4 eggs left, everything was stable.
This post is just for sharing experience (especially since I am a newbie) that will hopefully be useful to others if faced with this particular problem I am about to share.
The first egg that pipped did so on the small end of the egg (no air cell there). It DID hit a blood vessel and I saw some small bits of blood on the outer membrane.
Since I could see the beak, hear peeps and saw movement I left it alone for several hours. It had pipped around 1 or 2 pm. I watched carefully through the observation window throughout the day and night. By 12:30 am my gut told me to remove the egg and look closer since I could no longer see the beak and there were no more pips. I could hear urgent peeping and still see skin & wet feathers moving as it breathed.
I put a head lamp on, got a hot wet paper towel, a hot bowl of water, a blanket and went to investigate. I placed the bowl in the floor, draped the blanket over me and bowl as I kneeled on the ground and wrapped the egg in the paper towel. My goal was to keep the humidity up to not shrink wrap the chick. I started with tweezers where the outer membrane was dry, white and cracking. I carefully pulled pieces of the shell off the outer membrane and looked in the fairly large pip for the beak. I dipped a q-tip in the hot water to moisten the membrane and see better. A bit of blood was seen from a knicked blood vessel and I took a dry q-tip and pressed it in the spot to stop the bleed. I wrapped the egg in the paper towel and put in the incubator for another hour.
I came back and repeated my process (under a blanket) and just worked on the SHELL. I kept the membrane moist and listened for chirps to find the beak's location. The chick had tried to turn its head to the large end of the egg but was stuck in the center from it's leg blocking the large end and couldn't push past it's leg. From the moistened membrane I could see the blood vessels. There were no active vessels near the beak so I tore a small hole with the tweezers over the beak and pushed the membrane down past the nostrils so chick could breathe. I placed it back in the incubator for 30 more mins. Half the egg was open at this point (if you were to stand egg up on fat end so small end pointed up and cut it from the small point downward to the fat end in half) and the egg was a small bowl holding the chick. When I saw the blood vessels get very thin and shrink wrapping starting to occur, I removed the egg again (back under the blanket) and released its head and right leg to try and view the yolk. I eventually pulled the top of the membrane down around the egg to release half the chicks body. I could see the yolk not fully absorbed. It looked like there was flesh around the yolk (a membrane) but there were no feathers and you could clearly see the skin around it as it was absorbing.
I placed the chick + shell back in the incubator, with a wet paper towel under it and against the side of the temp/humidity gage so it could push against it with its right leg as it absorbed the yolk. I did research as I sat next to the incubator to keep an eye on the chick. I found literature that explained the peeps of the chick while hatching to determine what process the chick is in. It was DEAD ON! As a chick absorbs the yolk it will peep very rapidly and loud and will shake the egg. The chick pushes with its legs & peeps as the yolk absorbs - since the egg was open I actually got to visually see it and the yolk moving into the body! When a chick is softly peeping and still- it's absorbing all the blood from its vessels. Again, I had watched that before I helped with the membrane.
It was about 2am when I had released the membrane and by 10 am or so the yolk was almost done absorbing. So, I turned the chick onto its belly/legs with egg shell still attached to the yolk. By 11 am the shell came off and a small bit of the yolk (tip) was visible and the "umbilical cord" was hanging off it's belly. Around 12 pm- the 2nd chick that had hatched (at 4 am) was very active and pecked off the assisted chick's umbilical cord. I looked at it's belly and all was well - not fully closed but no yolk visible.
Egg after it pipped :
(I tried drawing as best as I could in my phone app- hope it makes sense! The drawing is to show where the head was and leg was under the membrane BEFORE I removed it and the purple dot is to show the pip spot )
It took over 24 hours for this assisted chick (now named: Lucky) to gain strength to stand and walk around. Lucky slept almost the whole past 24 hours (so did the other chicks, but they were a bit more active). Lucky is now healthy and happy
eating, drinking and moving around.Lucky today:
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