Chicks hatching - normal process? Emergency situation?

[wildgreen]

My broody hen is on day 20 and one of her five eggs pipped this morning! I just checked again and noticed that the outer shell is peeled off in a lot of places but the chick seems still stuck inside the membrane. It is peeping and moving a lot. Is this normal? Is the membrane too dry? Photo attached for reference. This is my first time ever doing this so any info is appreciated.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

The membrane is likely dry if you can see it and it isn't safely hidden under the hen.
What isn't normal is being able to see a pipped egg under a hen sitting tight while chicks hatch. How did that happen?

 

[wildgreen]

The membrane is likely dry if you can see it and it isn't safely hidden under the hen.
What isn't normal is being able to see a pipped egg under a hen sitting tight while chicks hatch. How did that happen?

I lifted her this morning to retrieve any eggs laid by my other hens in her nest and saw one of hers pipping. This evening I checked again because we have a lot of ants where we live and I wanted to make sure there were none in her nest trying to get to the hatching chicks (I’ve taken measures to prevent this but wanted to make sure it worked). I briefly lifted her each time. That’s when I noticed this and snapped a photo. She is in the picture I took - I’ve just lifted her breast to briefly reveal the eggs.

 

[wildgreen]

The membrane is likely dry if you can see it and it isn't safely hidden under the hen.
What isn't normal is being able to see a pipped egg under a hen sitting tight while chicks hatch. How did that happen?

Never mind! The chick hatched

 

[Perris]

glad it worked out. Generally it's best not to interfere during a hatch, especially at the start of it, as the hen is trying to keep the temperature and humidity just right for hatching under her, and lifting her is like opening the lid of an artificial incubator.

 

[wildgreen]

glad it worked out. Generally it's best not to interfere during a hatch, especially at the start of it, as the hen is trying to keep the temperature and humidity just right for hatching under her, and lifting her is like opening the lid of an artificial incubator.

Yes, thank you! I won’t be doing so anymore. I boarded her area up so no other hens can disturb her and now that I know ants won’t be an issue I’m going to let her do her thing.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Never mind! The chick hatched

That's good to hear.
I understand all the peculiarities that come with natural incubation. Especially other hens' volunteering eggs to a nest.
Most people don't have the option but I like having separate housing units from the flock for setting hens. During incubation, they don't need or want interaction with the flock. I had a couple broody apartments a hundred yards from the other housing. The trick besides providing food and water is also providing a place for dust bathing that is even more necessary while brooding since the hens are sitting ducks at the mercy of mites, lice, fleas and ticks.
Sitting on one's hands during the process is difficult but always good to remember that hens have been successfully incubating eggs for a million years without human intervention.

 

[wildgreen]

That's good to hear.
I understand all the peculiarities that come with natural incubation. Especially other hens' volunteering eggs to a nest.
Most people don't have the option but I like having separate housing units from the flock for setting hens. During incubation, they don't need or want interaction with the flock. I had a couple broody apartments a hundred yards from the other housing. The trick besides providing food and water is also providing a place for dust bathing that is even more necessary while brooding since the hens are sitting ducks at the mercy of mites, lice, fleas and ticks.
Sitting on one's hands during the process is difficult but always good to remember that hens have been successfully incubating eggs for a million years without human intervention.

Thank you! And yes, I totally agree and wanted to respect the process but I was just so worried about the ant problem we have and really wanted to ensure the chicks didn’t die because of that.

The separate housing unit - when you have a broody hen, do you move her to this space? I was worried if I moved her I would break her broodiness. But if I have room for a dust bath as well as those other essentials, does that keep her broody in your experience?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I've moved broody hens many times. What is critical is to make a nest that resembles the nest she is being moved from- in look, feel, size and lighting. The most important thing is the nest pad. Whatever material you use needs to be the same. When I discovered that, I moved a replaced the hen's eggs with fake eggs. I set up her apartment in the other building where I had 3 such units. (a rectangle and two trapezoids) the latter two are about 4' in length, 18" wide at one end and 3' wide at the other end. That is where the nest box and automatic water is. The rectangle is bigger. Each unit has a small man door, a huge hardware cloth window taking up about half of the long wall. There is an access door into the nest box from outside.
The apartment was all clean with fresh pine shaving bedding. The nest box had a new clean plastic nest pad. As soon as I had the incubated eggs in place, I took the hen from her old nest and put her in the prepared apartment. She just walked around refusing to sit on her eggs. Her old nest was an excelsior nest pad. I took a chance and pulled the plastic astroturf nest out replacing it with an excelsior pad and placed the eggs on it. The hen immediately went in and resumed incubation.
From that time forward, I always moved the hens to the broody apartments about two or three days after broodiness was confirmed.
I would do nothing for the hens other than to verify the automatic water was working, remove the lump of broody poop, and fill the feeder, when necessary, which was only needed a couple times during incubation.
No eggs volunteered from other hens. About a day before eggs hatching was imminent. I put a small piece of plywood onto part of the bedding. On that I put the chick water fount and made sure they could access the feeder. I never did anything else and only counted chicks after hatch, removing the eggshells.
I moved the hen and chicks back with her original flock after 3 or 4 days assuring the chicks had good mobility. This assures the hen is still in protection mode which keeps the other flock mates at bay till the chicks are accepted as members of the flock.

 

[wildgreen]

I've moved broody hens many times. What is critical is to make a nest that resembles the nest she is being moved from. The most important thing is the nest pad. Whatever material you use needs to be the same. When I discovered that, I moved a replaced the hen's eggs with fake eggs. I set up her apartment in the other building where I had 3 such units. (a rectangle and two trapezoids) the latter two are about 4' in length, 18" wide at one end and 3' wide at the other end. That is where the nest box and automatic water is. The rectangle is bigger. Each unit has a small man door, a huge hardware cloth window taking up about half of the long wall. There is an access door into the nest box from outside.
The apartment was all clean with fresh pine shaving bedding. The nest box had a new clean plastic nest pad. As soon as I had the incubated eggs in place, I took the hen from her old nest and put her in the prepared apartment. She just walked around refusing to sit on her eggs. Her old nest was an excelsior nest pad. I took a chance and pulled the plastic astroturf nest out replacing it with an excelsior pad and placed the eggs on it. The hen immediately went in and resumed incubation.
From that time forward, I always moved the hens to the broody apartments about two or three days after broodiness was confirmed.
I would do nothing for the hens other than to verify the automatic water was working, remove the lump of broody poop, and fill the feeder, when necessary, which was only needed a couple times during incubation.
No eggs volunteered from other hens. About a day before eggs hatching was imminent. I put a small piece of plywood onto part of the bedding. On that I put the chick water fount and made sure they could access the feeder. I never did anything else and only counted chicks after hatch, removing the eggshells.
I moved the hen and chicks back with her original flock after 3 or 4 days assuring the chicks had good mobility. This assures the hen is still in protection mode which keeps the other flock mates at bay till the chicks are accepted as members of the flock.

This is great info. Thank you for sharing!