Did I kill it? I thought it was dead!

[missychicky]

My egg is on day 24 and still hasn't pipped or even started peeping. Before I threw it out I candled it and it was much more developed than last time. There is absalutly no free space between the air sack and the chick.Did I kill it? Is it even still alive? If it is, how long will it be until it starts peeping? How long till it pips?

 

[Kedreeva]

uh.... well. I don't know if it's alive or not but if it's day 24 and you don't hear anything... My guess is that if there's no air sac then the chick's PROLLY not in there alive.... but you never know. If it's in there alive, it sounds like it's gotten too big to move around to pip itself. If you can't see it rocking any, and the egg is 100% full of chick with no way to tell if it's moving or not, you can try to break in and find out. You'll want to do this *very* carefully in case by some miracle the chick actually is alive.

Take something thin and a little pointed, like a pen or a nail (a clean one!) and gently tap/press a little at the tip of the large end of the egg. You should be able to (very, very gently) pip a hole in the top where the air sac should be (should have been, in this case). You can take tweezers or very, very carefully use the tip of the nail and crush/pull away tiny bits of the egg shell (and membrane, be really careful and stop if you see blood, dead chicks won't bleed) until you can see if there's movement or not from inside the egg. If there is you can start on the painstakingly slow adventure of helping it hatch. If there's not, you can start on the painstakingly slow non-adventure of an eggtopsy on a fully grown chick.

If it indeed had not made it, remember to snap a pic for the eggtopsy thread, located here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=363717&p=1

If it DID make it, make sure to snap a pic so we can see what this little guy looks like!

 

[missychicky]

I forgot to put this part in- The egg in question accidently got put in the fridge on day 19. I got it out after a few hours and put it back under my broody. I know that if it hatches it will be late but I was not sure how late. Did I take it from under my broody too early?

 

[Kedreeva]

Well, Day 24 is still 3 days added on. There should be some movement or sounds from the egg, even with a cool down.

 

[missychicky]

Good news! I heard a peep! How long till it pips?