Chick died while hatching - Why?

[Moochie]

I'm really bummed about the first chick that has hatched.. I was watching it through the clear plastic incubator and it was peeping fine.. It was trying to push itself out too. I went outside for an hour and when I came back the chick was dead. When I took it out of the bator there was some blood on the paper towel. I examined it and the blood came from the yolk but the yolk was just a little shriveled up thing hanging out of the chick's belly button. None of the other chicks have hatched yet. It's day 21.
Why did it die? I know when my mom comes home she'll be bummed too. This is the second chick from one of our favorite hens that has died, the first one was hatched last spring and only lived for 3 weeks. That one died from something else though. Anyways I have one more of Mama's eggs in there and the other 5 are from my EE mixes. I haven't opened the bator since I took out the dead chick and it's shell which was 2 hours ago and before that it wasn't opened for 12 hours.

Also one egg keeps rolling to one side like as if that side is heavy, is that normal? I ask because none of the other eggs are doing that.

 

[aoxa]

I'm really bummed about the first chick that has hatched.. I was watching it through the clear plastic incubator and it was peeping fine.. It was trying to push itself out too. I went outside for an hour and when I came back the chick was dead. When I took it out of the bator there was some blood on the paper towel. I examined it and the blood came from the yolk but the yolk was just a little shriveled up thing hanging out of the chick's belly button. None of the other chicks have hatched yet. It's day 21.
Why did it die? I know when my mom comes home she'll be bummed too. This is the second chick from one of our favorite hens that has died, the first one was hatched last spring and only lived for 3 weeks. That one died from something else though. Anyways I have one more of Mama's eggs in there and the other 5 are from my EE mixes. I haven't opened the bator since I took out the dead chick and it's shell which was 2 hours ago and before that it wasn't opened for 12 hours.

Also one egg keeps rolling to one side like as if that side is heavy, is that normal? I ask because none of the other eggs are doing that.

It's normal for the eggs to rock around like that.

As for the chick that died, I am very sorry It happens unfortunately. Sometimes you just don't know.

 

[Wynette]

Sometimes they die...and often we do not know why. It was not strong enough or could have had internal issues. Also, DO NOT open the incubator until the hatch is over. The humidity level needs to stay consistent through hatch; that is extremely important...please do not open the bator until the hatch is over. You do not want to jeopardize the others. So sorry the chick died, but the rolling egg is an indicator that the chick is positioning itself to pip & zip & hatch, so it sounds like you will have more chicks in NO TIME!

 

[mstricer]

Do you have the plugs in or out. What kind of feed are you feeding your birds. The reason I ask is, I had a gentleman ask me to hatch some of his guinea eggs, he gave me 150 eggs, only 11 hatched. He had been feeding feed from a place that I used to by feed but stopped, due to what my birds looked like. So it could be nutrition also.

 

[Moochie]

I refill the water pots every 6 hours or so if needed but I had to take the dead one out. :/
My birds are fed Kelley's lay feed along with other goodies. The laying flock gets a big bucket of left-overs, fruits, and veggies everyday. They also eat mice sometimes.. The bantams and the other wayward birds get meal worms and get to forage in the garden. Sometimes they eat the squash and cucumbers and mom goes mad. Heh.

 

[cmfarm]

When you say the yolk sack was shriveled up, could it have maybe broke open? That will kill them if that happens.

 

[Moochie]

When you say the yolk sack was shriveled up, could it have maybe broke open? That will kill them if that happens.

Oh gosh :[

The 6 other eggs all hatched fine but I had to help the one that pipped on the wrong end. I'm bummed that the other one died, but it did hatch early too.. It was still day 20 when it started hatching, day 21 started around 3pm. It is day 22 and 4 did not hatch until today. I am still very proud of what did hatch and very proud of my pet silkie rooster Skippy, he is officially a grandfather! Grandfather of 5 little chicks, even though Skippy doesn't know of their existence and won't care if he sees them I am happy for him n.n

 

[mstricer]