day 22

[gabrielle32]

ok for my last hatch of the year i set some polish eggs as a birthday surprise for my youngest son who has wanted a polish chick since forever,told him they were just more silkies for our breeding programme,the eggs were posted to me (20) and when they arrived 7 were broken,washed the others and set them in incy the following day,when I candled at day 8 only 6 were viable, anyway day 21 was yesterday, not a peep till 8pm when we were chuffed to hear some little cheeps,woke this morning to a pip in one egg,6 hrs later and nothing had progressed and no sounds so I decided to try and help ( I have done this before with success) but unfortunately the chick was dead,as none of the other 5 had pipped I decided to candle and there was very faint movement in only 1 egg. I am heartbroken,feel so bad for these poor little babies and have no birthday present for my little boy,is this all because of the difficult time they must have had in the post? Hate it that this years hatching is ending like this.Gonna give the last egg another few days but not holding out much hope and even if it does hatch what do I do with one little chick?

 

[sumi]

I'm so sorry to hear about your troubles

Why don't you help out the remaining live chick? It may be unable to pip... If it makes it your son can have a special little chick to raise. I've raised a single chick once and it actually worked out well. He grew into a beautiful, well adjusted rooster who's now taking very good care of my flock.

 

[gabrielle32]

Sumi your post gave me hope and I have taken your advice, have spent the past couple of hours removing the shell, all that's left now is mostly membrane and I'm unsure how to remove this,at time of writing this post chick is wrapped in warm wet washcloth in incy, is barely moving and hasn't cheeped at all, I know there isn't much hope if any but I have to try...any advice on removing membrane really welcome, gonna have a look at some other threads now to see what info I can find

 

[gabrielle32]

just went to check on chick and it had died

next time I order eggs and some are broken I'll be requesting replacements for ALL not just the broken ones,thank you Sumi for your advice,it's always worth trying

 

[sumi]

Oh no! I'm so sorry to hear that

Look, at least you tried....

This thread has some great info on helping:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/9316/intervention-helping-your-chicks-hatch

Shipped eggs always comes with a risk. From experience I don't try to hatch eggs that have to be washed. It removes the "bloom" on the shell that keeps bacteria out. The seller who send you the eggs must make a bit more effort with the packing next time. It is possible to get eggs through the PO unscathed!

 

[gabrielle32]

She was very lazy with her packaging, just a normal egg box which the eggs were much too small for wrapped in one layer of bubble wrap and I was so happy to find her,very difficult to find a supplier of silkie and polish eggs here,she sent me 10 more as a replacement for the broken ones,they're in a friends incy and doing well so far, (this time she wrapped them properly),and has offered me another 10 for the ones that didn't make it,can't say fairer than that I guess,I wouldn't normally hatch this late in the year but my poor silkie rooster needs more ladies!

 

[sumi]

That's nice of her! Good luck and fingers crossed with the replacement eggs