Broody has broken egg open and chick inside is breathing

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Ksw15

Chirping
Nov 27, 2021
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Help!! My broody hen has broken open one of her eggs, at first I assumed the chick was dead as she wasn’t sitting on it but when I looked more closely it is breathing. I quickly moved it under a heat lamp, it was cold to touch. It has been under heat for a few hours. Still breathing. Occasionally opening its eyes and chirping. Opening and closing mouth. The blood was obviously not fully absorbed yet but it also wasn’t bloody on the shavings underneath where it was broken. I have read other threads on this page and have followed advice to ‘wet’ the membrane with a soft paintbrush and coconut oil. I can still see some veins. Attaching photo this is exactly how everything looks, like I said the shavings underneath were clean. It is inside now in this picture under the heat lamp.
Please I urgently need any extra advice you can give! I’ve never hatched eggs under a heat lamp let alone like this. Is there any hope for this chick? I’m sure it should ideally be in an incubator but I don’t have one. It is luckily almost summer and we live in the subtropics. Humidity is high today with rain. I know none of this is ideal but it’s what I’m working with.
 

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I don’t have an incubator, the eggs were under my broody hen but she was doing that thing where they collect extra egg every day so I lost track of which ones had been there from the start. If I let a hen do this again I will mark the first ones next time..
anyway her first successful egg hatch was a week ago today. She was still diligent with the eggs for a few days after but I feel like the last couple days she’s been up a lot. I felt the eggs a few times and they were cold. I honestly didn’t think they were going to have viable chicks in them and actually went to take them away this morning but she started fretting when I did even though she had gone and relocated out to her run. So I put them back. And then maybe two hours later found this chick.
It’s been under the heat lamp for nearly 9 hours now and is more alive now then it was at the start. Looks about the same but she is moving around a bit. She has been sleeping all day just occasionally letting out a chirp or opening her eyes.
 
You're not going to like this advice.
Kill the chick and put it out of it's misery. If it hasn't hatched successfully under the mother then the probability is there is a problem with the chick and the mother would abandon it anyway.
Save yourself and the chick an awful lot of stress and grief. If the chick survives with your intervention then you will have to rear the chick and then you will have the problem of trying to integrate it into your flock. Integrating a single hen has it's own problems, integrating a chick that the mother would have abandoned is likely to be an even bigger problem.
Hens leave partially hatched and sick chicks in the nest often. It's part of how they ensure that they only feed and take care of those that are fit enough to keep up with the others.
A really simple rule is if you are going to let a hen sit and hatch then you have to let her make thhe decisions. She after all knows a lot more about it than we do.
 
It is midnight now and I’ve just come out to find the chick has broke away from its shell and membrane completely now. One bit of relief. No visible open wounds, abdomen looks fine too. but it’s one leg is splayed out behind it. Could it be broken? It was kind of laying like this while hatching. Does it just need time to learn where it’s legs go or is this going to need intervention from the sounds of it. Like I said earlier I have never even hatched a chick in an incubator only under a broody so I’ve only really seen them once dried. I don’t know if this chick is a lost cause or if this is how they can look when hatching and wet if you know what I mean. How soon should they be able to stand and walk around after hatching? Thank you all so much for your help. I don’t think I could put her out of her misery, not when she’s fighting this hard. I understand the whole nature ha it way thing but I’m also not sure the mother hen just didn’t know what to do now and was maybe freaking out when the eggs would chirp because like I said, this was the third mostly formed dead chick I have found. But this one just was found in the nick of time.
I am still praying for this chick and not ready to give up yet. I know she still has a fight ahead of her though.
 

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