Chick pipped egg then died. Upon opening it hadn’t popped the air sac though.

Graceayekay

In the Brooder
May 20, 2022
3
17
26
Hello! New here so I need some advice. I’m incubating chickens for the first time after mainly just doing quail. I ordered eggs on eBay and noticed an egg a little cracked on the outside but thought it’d be ok in the incubator ( might’ve been my first mistake ). Things go smoothly and I go into lockdown like usual. Here comes day 21 and only one egg has pipped. After a few hours a healthy baby comes. At the end of day 21 I notice one other egg slightly pipped and moving so I figured I’d go to sleep and it’d be out in the morning. I notice the slightly cracked egg oozing so I take it out without keeping the incubator open long. Here comes the 24 hour mark with little progress on that second egg so I decide to help it out. I open the egg to see that the baby had died, then I notice that it hadn’t even punctured the air sac yet, also notice that there’s a big thing of what looks like yolk on top of its stomach. I take the baby out and that “ yolk “ was its soft stomach. There was no bleeding from the membrane so I know it was dead, and now I know to watch for bad eggs. My question is, how could it have the strength to pip the egg without even puncturing the air sac? How could this have happened??
 
Opening the incubator could very easily cause them to die or even off set Temp and Humidity levels. The baby might've also hurt himself in the process or have bad genes... Not all babies ill make it out or absorb the yolk all the way. The baby might've been set in the wrong direction or punctured the wrong area.
 
Opening the incubator could very easily cause them to die or even off set Temp and Humidity levels. The baby might've also hurt himself in the process or have bad genes... Not all babies ill make it out or absorb the yolk all the way. The baby might've been set in the wrong direction or punctured the wrong area.
That for sure could’ve been it. It’s head was right under the air sac and it pipped the side of the egg but didn’t make it through the membrane. I caught a bad egg late so I think it may have been sick because when I opened it up, it’s stomach was really soft and yolky looking but otherwise it had developed to almost hatching age. I ended up with 1 baby out of that batch and I think it was an unfortunate combo of incubator issues and the bad egg being incubated with them :(
 

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