Day 22 - dead or alive? :(

[Sally Sunshine]

Hi chook, https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/step-by-step-guide-to-assisted-hatching please refer to this article and perhaps try float testing, It will walk you through the process. And if they are gone please refer to this article and scroll down to "what went wrong" section https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/hatching-eggs-101 your welcome to hop onto that diary thread with us as well you may find more answers.

I am not sure I understand what you did with the eggs, did you float test and follow the steps in that article? Pictures can really help others in helping you out too. Sorry your having such issues, calibrating and having good hygros and thermos are key to hatching along with understanding humidity is NOT a set number, humidity is a tool and it should be used and ADJUSTED to achieve the correct weight loss/air cell growth in the egg either tracking by weighing or marking air cells and making adjustments as needed. So many people come for help with either stuck chicks or wet chicks, Dry incubation does not imply no water either, use it as a tool only. I hope you have a better hatch next time around with a good hygro and some more reading, so sorry this is so stressful for you too. Again all the information I can give you I put into some articles to help others understand all that I have learned along the way.

 

[misschickenlittle]

Wet the membrane with qtips...

I would check it hourly and see how it's profressing. If it's making progress leave it. If it's not you can help break off more shell as needed.

 

[JLaw]

Sorry chook27 I have no experience with this so I cant give you any advice. I wish you the best with it though.

 

[misschickenlittle]

Can you take pictures and post them??

 

[chook27]

Just a quick update to say I helped the chick, but I am not sure if I did more harm than good, but I could not wait any longer as it had been struggling for that long and the last chick that hatched without any help was 4 days ago. Can anybody explain the time difference in hatching times? It can be the temp/humidity differences as I moved the eggs around when I filled the water trays and turned them. If I had left the first hatched chick in until the end, it would have been in there for 5 days!

Anyway, the chick might be damaged though, it does keep on falling backwards and randomly pecking the others. It's toes also seem curled. Any advise on that. I am just going to keep an eye now and hope for the best, but not holding my breath.

 

[cubbysan]

My little problem chick that we had appeared to have a club foot and trouble walking. Now 48 hours later, his feet appear to be normal, the shell that was stuck is gone, he is trying to cuddle up with the older chick, and is eating and drinking. He just looks still wet on his back, I may need to give him a bath.

Hope your little guy is doing better. I really thought mine would die the first day, but I am new to this, so I don't know what is normal.

 

[JLaw]

Just a quick update to say I helped the chick, but I am not sure if I did more harm than good, but I could not wait any longer as it had been struggling for that long and the last chick that hatched without any help was 4 days ago. Can anybody explain the time difference in hatching times? It can be the temp/humidity differences as I moved the eggs around when I filled the water trays and turned them. If I had left the first hatched chick in until the end, it would have been in there for 5 days!

Anyway, the chick might be damaged though, it does keep on falling backwards and randomly pecking the others. It's toes also seem curled. Any advise on that. I am just going to keep an eye now and hope for the best, but not holding my breath.

Hatch times could be different breeds, different amount of time under a hen before collecting, cool/warm spots in bator. It's like woman each has its own time and not all from the same are the same time. My 2 kids same wife was different for time the wife carried my two bundles of joys.

As for the chick being damaged time will tell. Some times does uncurl on they're own others you may have to split. As for the pecking. I personaly wouldnt worry about that as much since it's the youngest and pushing the others around. Now if it was injured and being picked on i would worry. Chicks/chickens tend to pick on the weak link.

I hope ya the best keep us posted.

jlaw

 

[chook27]

I am not sure I understand what you did with the eggs, did you float test and follow the steps in that article? Pictures can really help others in helping you out too. Sorry your having such issues, calibrating and having good hygros and thermos are key to hatching along with understanding humidity is NOT a set number, humidity is a tool and it should be used and ADJUSTED to achieve the correct weight loss/air cell growth in the egg either tracking by weighing or marking air cells and making adjustments as needed. So many people come for help with either stuck chicks or wet chicks, Dry incubation does not imply no water either, use it as a tool only. I hope you have a better hatch next time around with a good hygro and some more reading, so sorry this is so stressful for you too. Again all the information I can give you I put into some articles to help others understand all that I have learned along the way.

Hi Sally,

Thank you very much for all your advise throughout the thread and sorry, I did not answer your question. I had a really busy week and although I wanted answers to all of my questions I was usually in a rush when reading through this.

I just candled the eggs, I didn't feel floating the eggs was that good an idea. I don't like exposing eggs to water in general. I was going to do it before throwing the eggs perhaps, but in the meantime I decided on candling and marking them.

The chick I originally posted about, came out alright and I think it would have done ok without any help at all (I actually hardly helped it anyway). The second chick was malpositioned and picked below the air chamber, so not so sure about him/her. I helped it along quite a big, but it came out with a lot of stuff still attached, so perhaps it would have just needed more time, too, but we will never know.

Altogether the hatch was not bad. I had 12 eggs (3 of our own, 3 from somebody else and another 6 from another friend). Our own 3 were infertile, so that means the rooster is looking for a new home!!! The other lot of 3, was one infertile and 2 yellow chicks (these are the ones I helped). The lot of 6 had 1 infertile, 1 with detached airsack and no development and 1 dead fully developed chick. This chick had no internal pip and I had never seen it move, but It seemed perfectly fine and yolk sack was still attached and chick folded. I might try and post a picture of this to see what other think, but it might just be one of those things. Anyway, 3 live chicks out of that lot. This means that despite me stressing there was actually only 1 chick that had died in the egg.
5 are running around chirping, so we will see how they will do. I hope they all will live, but then nature can be cruel.

Thanks to everybody that has helped me on this thread. It was very much appreciated.