Don't Know What To Do ~ Bad Leg

[mcmommy]

ARrrggghhh, We had 5 successful chick hatching between Monday and Tuesday night.
I lost one to that sticky egg thing. Anyways,.... I feel horrible..... I had five eggs left that hadn't pipped. So this morning, I turned off the bator, then was going to clear it out, I turned over an egg and it HAD PIPPED! This was at 4pm, by 9pm it had hatched. It is breathing, resting but it looks like one of its legs is bad! Is this cuz of me turning off the bator, what do I do? Do I wait till tomorrow, once it has rested and then see if it can be mobile? Right now I think the poor thing is exhausted... this is horrible.
Please give me a smidge of advice.

 

[Akane]

Late hatchers tend to have more problems especially with curled toes and splayed legs. Just leave it alone in the bator and see if it improves. They can stay in the bator for a couple days if they need to because the yolk provides all the food they need for awhile. Even if it doesn't recover 100% by itself once it's dry and active you can get a better idea of the problem and there are a few things you can do to help minor leg problems.

 

[FenDruadin]

Aww. Don't beat yourself up. If that egg had been sitting under a hen, she would have walked off with the other chicks and left the poor little thing anyway, and it would have been far worse off than it is now. When she came back, if it was hatched and alive, she might have killed it, believing something to be wrong with it. Nature's cruel sometimes.

I doubt seriously the leg problem has anything to do with the incubator being off anyway.

For now, just let it rest and sleep. When it's dried out and fluffed up, you can put it in the brooder and examine its condition. There may be nothing wrong with it--it's hard to know until it's had a chance to recover from hatching. Hatching is hard work.

I'm assuming you turned the incubator back on and left the rest of the eggs in it for a while, right? My first hatching took five days from first pip to last zip, and then I left the remaining egg in for another two days (I only set five eggs to begin with, and only four made it to hatching day). Of course, that was ducks, and they are different from chickens. Still, I have heard of eggs hatching as much as five days late, so I plan to always wait a good long while before giving up.

Good luck. I think your little one will be all right. And don't feel too bad. Nature is much crueler than our worst mistakes. You're doing fine.

 

[mcmommy]

Yes! I turned the bator back on right away, the chick is resting and fluffing up. I will let it be until, probably this time tomorrow! Thanks