Baby chick--what can I do?

[Avonshire]

My baby chick has something DEFINITELY wrong with it. It can't stand up. It was born yesterday after almost 2 days from pip and I had to help at that--something I am not doing again. It has some kind of misshappened stomach and a bump on the stomach. This is my first hatch ever. My first chick has curled toes. I am not sure about the health of the eggs or maybe it was all my incubating gone wrong. If left alone it will die but it will take some time because it will just starve to death. It can't get up and walk around. If I need to help it to die please advise in this department. This is just horrible for my first experience with hatching. I am wishing I never did this! Please help!

 

[rebeccakeesee]

Hey girl,
Dont give up. I want to go thru your incubation process and see if you skipped anything but The good news is I found this post from 08. I'm just gonna paste it below. And are you gonna make a shoe for chick one?

We have had LOTS hatch like this unfortunately. But there is hope! We have only lost a small percentage of these chicks. What we do is get a q-tip that is wet (warm water) and gently ease the intestines back into the abdominal cavity. Hold it there for several minutes or until the skin closes around the intestines. Believe it or not, this does not take very long at all.

*** DO NOT use liquid bandage. We did this on the first few chicks that had this, and we lost all but one due to the bandage leaking down the belly and closing the vent.

Hopefully this has been helpful to you

 

[rebeccakeesee]

This is what the other looked like. Yours are a little darker so I couldnt tell if it was the same.

 

[Avonshire]

Well I decided to let this one go. I am still trying to help my first chick. Its curled toes are pretty bad and it is on both feet. I tried medical tape and angry bird band aids--neither worked. Then I bought stickier band aids and it seems to stay on better. I will change it tomorrow and keep them on for a few days. Supposedly this will help. I also have another egg that pipped and zipped about half way around. I thought it was dead but then I swear some progress. I dont have a lot of hope for it but I will give it until the morning before cleaning up the mess and trying to move on to another batch to hatch.

 

[Avonshire]

Oh and I KNOW my incubation process was flawed. First I have no idea what my humidity was. I did not know I needed to monitor it. A hygrometer did not come with my incubator so I did not think it was needed! I was very naive! Anyway I have a hygrometer now. I know that my temp needs to be higher than the 99.5 on top of the eggs that I was using. I also did not use a turner and was not religious about turning. I turned at least once a day. Sometimes twice and I miss a day or two. I did not realize how important it was! I did not realize the WHOLE scope of the work involved with hatching eggs! It is kind of an art actually! What works for some does not work for others. Some have great hatches followed by bad ones and these are people who know what they are doing. It is a bit daunting to me! Some help their chicks out and all goes just fine whereas others help their chicks and it is disastrous!!

 

[rebeccakeesee]

Yes this is true. Any time you attempt to mimic mother nature their is un for seen variables. Turning is very important. always an odd number. 3-5-7 times a day. To exercise the developing baby. Dont give up. All things take practice and learning. I grew tomato plants for five yrs before I was able to achieve a good consistent harvest. I laugh when I think of my first attempts. But now I run the school Garden and people think I have an amazing green thumb. Ha ha. They should have seen the first couple that looked like charlie brown x-mas trees. So sad. And discouraging. First Time I grew onions I worked on them for months! The fall came and I pulled them up. Thru the kitchen window my husband yells " Those are smaller than when you started! HA HA HA!" I teared up... But then realized how funny it was actually.