Day 22 and one last egg pipped but hasn't hatched, I have questions...

[chicken_china_mom]

Ok, I think that all the eggs that are going to hatch, have already hatched, starting the evening of the 25th which was only Day 20, and this morning I was setting up the brooder and getting it ready to move the chicks into it when my daughter informed me that another egg had pipped. That was at about 10:30 this morning. It's now 7:37pm and while the egg IS pipped, and the chick IS moving, it hasn't progressed any further. It's moving around in there and the other chicks come along every so often and see it moving and pack at it, so the hole it probably slightly larger than it was early this morning. I had the first chick hatch around 11:45pm on the 25th, and the others all followed by last night. I know you aren't suppose to leave them in the bator longer than 3 days after they hatch, right? How much longer do I give the baby to hatch? I have not opened that lid for anything, so temp and humidity are only fluctuating due to the hot little chick bodies running around in there. I am concerned though cause there are two dead chicks in there. I know they will start to get ripe pretty soon.

Will the babies be ok til tomorrow morning if I leave them another night in the bator? This is my first hatch with multiple chicks hatching. My only other successful hatch consisted of a lone chick, so I removed her once she was dry. But this is a new experience for me. Any help would be much appreciated. And if it matters, the chick is an EE.

 

[RedfogsFlock]

Well we had a similar situation, we had all the eggs hatch but two, and then one of the last ones pipped. It was time to take out the babies, so what we did was put a little food in there for them to buy some time and see if the other egg would hatch. It finally did later that next day. (we put the food through one of the vent holes, and it landed on our washcloth) The babies that had hatched ate the food, and were fine when we got home later.

Hope it helps.

 

[chicken_china_mom]

I don't have a washcloth in there. Wishing now that I did though.

Those little ones want out of that bator though. I'm constantly checking that egg. It looks like the baby is panting inside the shell. The chicks are bouncing around so much in there they are actually moving the incubator! I might have to weight down the lid with something a bit heavy if they keep bouncing off the walls like they are! I tried to pour a little food through the top and I aimed for a broken shell, though I think most of the food missed the shell completely. Oh well. I hope the chick is hatched by tomorrow. I'll be praying it is!

 

[RedfogsFlock]

We have ducks hatching right now, and our one that has pipped but not hatched looks just like yours I guess. She looks like she's panting in there! here's a thought, cut a piece of cloth and push it through the vent hole. That's how my hubby got some cloth in there at one point and that caught food too. We had to cover up our thermometer cuz our little ones were bouncing around in there so much that they broke the thermometer! AND they broke our hydrometer off the little stand we had it on too! We're getting talented at moving things with wooden BBQ skewers, lol.

Hope this helps some, I'm sure someone with more experience can help more! We just need to get em in here!

Oh and we found that a washcloth works WAY better than a sponge! It keeps the humidity higher, longer, and we can stack it up or knock it down to make more space.

 

[ebear82]

Well, I am by no means an expert, but I did just have a fairly successful hatch of 22 chicks out of 34 (some of those were not fertile). I opened my incubator every day to take chicks out for a week, while others were in there that had already pipped, and they all ended up just fine. I just made sure to do it as quick as I could.

 

[chicken_china_mom]

So, maybe if the baby isn't out by morning I could slip a hot washcloth in there for humidity, and then try to slip the hatched babies out of there as fast as possible? Does anyone else think that would work?

 

[muddstopper]

My thoughts are to take a washcloth or sponge and run it under some warm tap water, open the bator and remove the hatched chicks and replace with the warm cloth. This will help keep the humidityup while the latecomer has a chance to hatch. Sometimes I will leave one or two chicks in the bator to help encourage the last eggs to hatch.