Culled the Chick - Did I Do the Right Thing?

[Piper1998]

Had a chick hatch yesterday that had a hole in her abdomen through which an inch of what looked like intestine was protruding. It was oozing blood and greenish stuff. It also appeared that there was blood oozing into the area under the skin in her abdomen. Her feet were very awkward - not misshapen, but not working properly. She was chirping up a storm and I didn't even realize the issues until she was about 8 hours old and out of the bator. Had DH put her down last night. Have any of you ever seen this before, and it really wasn't something she'd outgrow, right?

 

[CMV]

It's a pretty common hatch defect. The yolk did not fully absorb or the abdomen didn't close up after...something similar to that effect.

You did the right thing. Absolutely. These chicks often don't make it.

I am sorry for your loss.

 

[Lapaysannefarm]

This happened to us a couple years back, but with a duckling. It died.

 

[Piper1998]

Quote:

Thank you so much for your response. One more question, please? This is my first experience at hatching eggs and I'm using the LG still air incubator. I mistakenly burned my finger on the heating element and realized how low that thing is. Now, I've read that we should leave the chicks in the incubator for 24 hours after they hatch, but after an hour or so they begin to stand up and stretch to see out the windows on the top and I'm afraid they'll get burned. So after a couple of hours I've been taking them out and putting them into a brooder with a good warm light. Is this an issue, and have you ever heard of anyone with a burned chick from this thing?

 

[Piper1998]

Quote: Thx; now I feel like we did the right thing. If she'd been lethargic, or anything other than pure clumsy I'd have felt that we saved her from pain, but she really didn't seem to act any different than the healthy chicks - except that she would run around and then sit abruptly when her feet got tangled up. She did get trampled a few times and when rolled on her back she had a tough time righting herself.