Button Quail Incubation - assisted out of shell - did I do the right thing??

[JaeG]

It's very easy to become addicted to hatching! Birds are more forgiving when it comes to inbreeding so one generation isn't going to give you any issues.

My disabled girl (who hatched her sisters eggs after her own weren't fertile) lives with her sister and brother as I never thought they'd sit on their eggs having been raised artificially. Our original female is sweetheart and a great mother but with her first batch of eggs she abandoned them when they started pipping. So I had to finish hatching them and raise them.

But these current chicks seem absolutely fine despite being the product of a brother/sister mating. I've got more in the incubator as the sister seems to like laying them but so far hasn't sat. I have a young girl in our aviary who started sitting at the same time as I started incubating so I'll swap out the eggs near hatch time as I'm pretty sure hers won't be fertile. She's still with her parents and her father is very faithful to their mother (they generally are monogamous).

 

[Mlshaw0914]

I am incubating 24 button quail eggs I received through the mail. I am using a homemade incubator made from a styrofoam cooler with a computer fan and two lights controlled with a water heater thermostat. I started incubation on 7/28/17 and hand turned the eggs in cartons (lifting one end up on a block) at least twice a day. Temperatures stayed between 97 and 100 F, mostly right around 99 F. 8/11/17 was day 14 so I water candled the eggs, 15 of them seemed to show movement (some more than others) and I couldn't see any movement on the remaining 9 (only 2 floated really high in the water). I placed all the eggs in lockdown since none of them smelled rotten. Humidity was in the 20s to 30s for most of incubation; I added warm water at time of lockdown and got the humidity up to the high 50s/low 60s. On day 16 8/13/17, no eggs had hatched. 8/14/17 AM there were 7 babies hatched and moving around the incubator. 8/14/17 PM after I got home from work there were another 3 babies hatched. None of the rest of the eggs seemed to be pipping and the babies seemed fluffy so I removed them to the brooder. I added warm water to bring the humidity back up since it dipped when I took the chicks out.

8/15/17 AM I noticed one egg looked like it might be pipping, but it was on the downward side of the egg so it was difficult to tell. 8/15/17 PM the egg was definitely zipping, but it didn't seem to be making much progress. No other eggs appeared to be pipping. 8/15/17 PM chick still zipping, but only about half of the circumference had been zipped. 8/16/17 AM no change with zipping chick and it was hard to tell if it was still alive and moving. Still no movement/change with other eggs. 8/16/17 PM I couldn't stand it anymore and took the egg out of the incubator. The membrane that was visible looked dry and yellow. The chick cheeped as I held it and I could see it breathing. I gently peeled some of the egg away where it had already zipped and it seemed to struggle more as I helped get rid of the shell. I was able to completely remove the shell and put the chick back into the incubator to warm up and fluff out. The chick is staying on its side and is kicking its legs like it thinks it is still in the egg and wants out.

Did I do the right thing to help it? Should I have helped it sooner? The blood vessels had completely absorbed, so I think it was ready to hatch but maybe got too tired or took too long and the membrane dried? Or maybe it was pipping when I took out the others and the dip in humidity (less than 5 min) made it dry out? Has anyone else had a similar experience? Will the chick live? The other 10 chicks in the brooder seem to be doing fine and are eating/drinking.
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I did the same thing and it started laying in it's side and eventually does later that day. It's get were all curled up and the neck kinda was bent down but laying in side. It was sad but i know but all make it