Or can it ever be normal? One of my eggs has been pipped since early, early this morning. It has a small hole opened up with a bit of membrane over it that is quite white. I lost a chick this morning who had been pipped for 24 hours with little progress and I decided to help too late and his beak was crusted over with goo, so I don't want to do wrong by this one too.
I've found that the ones that couldnt quite make it out of the egg that I ended up helping - tend to have some sort of deformity that prevents them from doing so. I regret rescuing a few that had deformed legs and ended up dying a slow death because they were unable to move around to eat and drink. Maybe this isnt your case, but I've since decided to let nature take its course. If it can't hatch that's tough luck. I've been studying way to improve my incubating methods and this happens much less often now.
