Chirping in egg

[TwoCrows]

Thank you! Had to help the sticky kid (RIR with Mohawk lol )but she made it!!! Fingers crossed I’m gonna get a couple blacks!!!

Cuteness overload for sure! Great hatch!

 

[Chickenshannanigans]

Cuteness overload for sure! Great hatch!

Still going….

 

[Debbie292d]

One down 11 to go! I don’t know how “black” it is……. But we shall see! I will post when dry another pipped!

Congrats on the new chicks! Adorable!

 

[Sotapop34]

Hopefully you had a good nights sleep. Yeah right!

There are different stages to the hatching process. The chick internal pips. It pokes a hole on the air cell and sticks its beak in. It learns to breathe air instead of living in a liquid world. Once it is breathing air you can hear it peep. That tells a broody hen that it is on the way so wait for me. Eventually it external pips. It pokes a hole in the eggshell so it can breathe outside air. Eventual it zips. That's where it cuts a line all the way around the egg so it can push the shell apart and hatch. This can be exhausting work so it may need to stop and rest some.

While it is doing all of this it has to absorb the yolk. That yolk allows it to live without eating and drinking for at least 72 hours after hatch. That way the early ones to hatch can wait on the late ones to hatch.

There are blood vessels in the membrane around the chick that have been giving it nutrients as it grew. It needs to dry up those blood vessels and absorb that blood before it hatches. That way it does not cut a blood vessel and bleed to death as it zips.

The chick needs to do something with the liquids that surrounds it inside that membrane. I don't know what it does but that allows the chick to be dry and fluffy after it dries out. I've helped a few chicks hatch that did not dry that up. When they finally dried the down was matted and stuck to them, not that beautiful dry fluffy down. It took about a week for them to be nice and fluffy.

I don't know what else the chick has to do before it hatches. It is busy and it can take a while.

Some chicks do a lot of this stuff before external pip. These are the ones that zip fairly soon after they external pip. I like these. You don't have a lot of time to worry after you see the external pip. Some do a lot of this after external pip but before zip. It may take 24 hours or so. These can be really worrying. I worry a lot less if they do this stuff before external pip. That's probably because I did not see the internal pip. If you don't see it you are not going to worry as much.

All this to say that there is no set time between internal pip, external pip, and zip. It can vary a lot and yes, it can be worrying.

Good luck with the hatch! Let us know how it goes.

I am new to all of this and currently hearing chirps on day 19, anxiously waiting for pips, and your reply has made me feel infinitely more informed and comforted! Thank you for this wonderful explanation! <3