Day 20 lockdown. No external pips.

[Sagey_7878]

I am scared to go to sleep... scared it will need help and at that moment I will be sleeping. I am about to go look again... its been about an hour.

Maybe set some alarms on your phone during the night so you can check up on it. Like at 1AM then at 2:30AM then 4AM

 

[Jennifer Cappi Williams]

oh...I don't think I slept but between 3:30 - 4:15 and then from 5:30 to 7:30. Every hour I would creep in there with my flash light and look. The one that was looking like it was having such a difficult time getting out FINALLY got out this morning. I noticed that at 7:30. Its still laying on its back. It is exhausted. Much more tired than the other ones that hit the ground running. I quick swabbed its navel stump with iodine, which it did feel good enough to protest such treatment. The other two eggs are peeping, one has piped and the other has not but is screaming and that worries the hell out of me. Is it screaming for help???? ("MOM I CAN'T BREATHE!!!") worried but I don't know what,if anything I can do if it has not made a pip and I don't know where its little face is...

 

[lazy gardener]

After internal pip (that's when you first hear them) they can rest for a full 24 hours before they have the energy for external pip and zip. During that rest period, a lot is going on. They are absorbing the remaining yolk, and blood in the membrane vessels. They are also working on their breathing. When the CO2 level in the egg gets high, and the O2 level gets low, her O2 level goes low. This causes an alteration in her movement patterns. Her legs go from a reciprocal left/right movement (walking or swimming) to a synchronized thrust (jumping or pushing) Without this change in pattern which is caused by the O2 level shift, hatching will not succeed. Worry not. After she externally pips, she will then rest for quite a while before zipping. If I have a chick who is distressed and not progressing past the external pip stage, I often wait until the end of the hatch before assisting. As long as she can still breathe in the egg after that external pip, it won't hurt her a bit to sit tight for a full day. This approach has saved me from assisting before the chick is ready to hatch.

 

[Jennifer Cappi Williams]

Thanks. Last night the yellow one that finally hatched today was just not zipping. Seemed to be stuck in the exact same spot for since yesterday afternoon. It did not seem to be able to move its head to unzip at all.... I did enlarge the area and kept the membrane wet with coconut oil and do a few tiny advances once every hour until its head and shoulder area was not covered by shell. After putting the coconut oil on, I left it alone until this morning where I see its out. The other one had a pip but had not broken thru. I made a tiny air hole and it seemed excited to breathe air and left that one alone and it went from nothing going on to working that shell and it just popped out. I know the EXTREME risk of helping. I just tried to get it where it could finish (plus I held it in a warm wet paper towel in front of my mini heater so it would not chill and did the tiniest of chipping at the shell...really tiny. ) A beautiful blue or silver baby was the one out just now. Now just down to the two eggs that have not externally pipped but are making noise and there is one that never did and one that has stopped making noise...

 

[lazy gardener]

Current recommendation is to ditch the wet paper towel as the evaporation cools the shell. I don't know whether that holds a lot of merit or not, especially if the egg is still in the incubator.

 

[Jennifer Cappi Williams]

I was doing this while crouching on a three legged milk stool in front of a bathroom heater next to the biddy brooder with the heat lamp. I was worried about it getting cold but I was hoping that would help (and even so then my thoughts went to "am I over heating it?" I am so hoping the other two will just get busy and pop out. I need to go to sleep...

 

[Jennifer Cappi Williams]

The fluffy ones so far. There are two in the incubator that just hatched this morning still and two in the eggs that need to GET BUSY...

 

[Jennifer Cappi Williams]

The two non-piping eggs I decided to go ahead and carefully do an egg necropsy. The egg I THOUGHT I heard cheeping was almost all liquid with just a tiny embryo. What in the world? I guess I heard its ghost. The egg I thought had NOT developed had a fully developed chick in it. Not alive or at least not moving or breathing. It was a strange shaped egg with both ends pointed. It didn't have an air sack of any real size on either end. Nothing at all where its head is and only a TINY air pocket by its butt. I pulled off the egg shell, kept the inner membrane and opened only on its face on the off chance there is still life. Its veins were still bright red but nothing bled as I did that which means to me its dead. In any case, just in case, I swabbed it down in coconut oil and wrapped it up in a coconut oil damped paper towel and added warm water to the incubator right under if for steam and put it back. The LAST chick is almost unzipped though. Just a bit more and I am done...

 

[Sagey_7878]

Yay! And I’m sorry to hear about the other chicks. Could you take a photo once they’re all in the incubator?

 

[Rocky09]

Wow that was exciting i’m on day 6 on my first ever hatch 10 eggs in the bator from my own hens i just did some candling on a few and results were good here is a couple of pics