Chick stuck?? Should i help?

[Ella2710]

This is a brahma chick that is the last one and still not hatched, it is only day 21 but all the others hatched on day 20...also humidity dropped to 30% because I was afraid to open the bator during lockdown and add more water! Shortly after finally deciding to open it and add more today the last unhatched silkie died!!! The brahma chick is still breathing and I cracked some of the shell away with a tweezers, but the chick hasn't continued to hatch for 12 hours, what should I do? All the other 9 chicks and the shells in the bator are so crowded and the babies seem hot - they keeping hanging their mouths open...

 

[BigBlueHen53]

@Pyxis can you advise?

 

[Pyxis]

What is the temperature inside your incubator, and have you verified it with a thermometer you know to be calibrated and correct? The eggs hatching a day early plus the babies seeming hot leads me to believe it is probably higher than it should be.

As for this egg, how is it doing now? Do you know when it externally pipped? If so, they can take 24 hours from the time of external pipping to be ready to hatch.

You may also open the incubator quickly to remove all the shells and move the hatched chicks to the brooder. It won't hurt anything.

Also, here is the link to my article on assisted hatching. You may want to read it over, just in case.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/guide-to-assisted-hatching-for-all-poultry.72886/