Chirping no more

[EquiAsh95]

I had an egg that is the last to hatch. Hatching day was 2 days ago. I did here chirping in egg for a few hours yesterday but nothing today and no movement in the egg. No pip. How long should I leave it in there?

 

[FunClucks]

Sounds like it died. If you want, you can carefully open a hole into the egg into the air cell and check on it visually to see if you can see movement. You can also perform an eggtopsy to see it had any obvious deformities or malpositions that prevented hatching.

Sorry this one didn't make it. It happens.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

What day is it on?

 

[EquiAsh95]

It was dead. The whole abdomen was open

 

[FunClucks]

It was dead. The whole abdomen was open

I'm sorry. These things happen. Deformities are most often due to parent flock diet (high protein with good micronutrients in standard chicken feed answers the bill here), genetics of parent flock (the only control you have over this is where you get your birds, and deciding who mates with who), and making sure incubation is optimal (turning, temps and humidity). As long as you did the best you could with these factors, then you did all you could to promote healthy chicks. This is the hard part of chicken keeping.

 

[Mountain Roost]

Sorry it didn't make it.

I read somewhere that hatching is not for the faint of heart. I have to remind myself of that often.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

It was dead. The whole abdomen was open

Exposed viscera at hatching time is caused either by a genetic anomaly or high incubator temperature. Did any of the eggs hatch early?

 

[EquiAsh95]

Exposed viscera at hatching time is caused either by a genetic anomaly or high incubator temperature. Did any of the eggs hatch early?

No, they hatched all at 21 days. I’ve never had this happen before but I’ve now had it with 1 of my eggs, and 2 of my shipped eggs from different shipments. I keep my temp at 99.5 and humidity 40-45 and then of course higher around 60-65 at lockdown.