Chick in egg - trying to decide cull or not

[BlindLemonChicken]

That or a similar method would have been on the table if it had hatched on its own but been lethally deformed. I had no visibility under that membrane though; I couldn't even see where the neck was (I haven't checked yet to see what's underneath; I will do later). Any attempt to get inside was going to bleed like crazy because the veins had never dried up - I wondered if that was how it was actually breathing, not so much the breathing motion. I will be able to answer that later I guess. Anyway, knowing the sorts of visually horrifically bad ways development can go wrong, I knew that if I opened it up in any way before it was dead and something extra awful spilled out in a wiggling state, it would have been even harder for me to deal with quickly/sanely.

Yeah that’s what I mean. It wouldn’t have worked in this particular situation. You did the right thing.

 

[MarlaMac]

I chose a method; what's done is done now. The method is not great but I didn't seem to have any other reasonable options. I wrapped the egg tightly in plastic to cut off air flow, which increases CO2 fairly rapidly given the small volume. What I had at my disposal was limited. Were it not for the realization that I do actually need to suck it up and analyze things later, I was about ready to deal with it like I do with rodents that don't get a clean death from a trap. Before doing anything, I confirmed that it was totally unresponsive to sound and touch, which at that developmental stage means it was already brain damaged/dead. So things were actually somewhat "better" than I thought in my first post. I don't know exactly how long it takes for the CO2 ratio to get where it needs, but within just a minute or so the repetitive breathing motion had already become less and slower. Obviusly what I chose to do in this situation is not a method I would ever use on a chick that showed any signs of awareness because it is not as fast as other options, but from what I was frantically trying to search on it should be faster than chilling.

In the future I think I need a way to prepare an emergency CO2 bath, which is the only feasible option that I've seen listed for human euthanasia of chickens past day 18 from resesarch facilities and the like (the other methods also use gas but it's not stuff I can make or get). I wish I had something on hand to do that today but I'm out of vinegar, so I couldn't even do the vinegar and baking soda method for making a baloon of CO2. Similarly I have nothing suitable on hand right now to trap CO2/CO from exhaust.

Very hard. Sorry.

 

[DonyaQuick]

I cracked things open for inspection. Not what I expected to see, but I do feel better about my decision after seeing what the issue was:

• No eyes.
• Malformed skull; very narrow except right near back of the skull. The brain will have been abnormal and as a result.
• Upper beak too short.
• Lower jaw misaligned and twisted.
• Significant portion of yolk not absorbed, so development had actually stopped a while ago.
• No abnormalities for limbs or torso but one leg was in a weird position.

Even if it had somehow hatched it would not have survived more than a short time.

 

[tlcmurphy]

I’m sorry you had to go through this.
In the future, you could use dry ice on one side of a cooler with the chick separated on the other side. Put the lid on and wait, dry ice is solid CO2.