EMERGENCY

[SvinFold]

Hey, We had a chick pass away early this morning, but it wasnt the last in the batch. They are both XL eggs, possibly from our Rhode Island Red. The first, as i just said, died this morning with a fair sized hole in the egg, and a toe sticking out. We have no idea what happened, and my mother didn't have the heart to open it and see if we could find anything. Problem is, is that the other one seems to be having the same problem. It won't chirp, and does nothing but open and close it's mouth. I removed some of the eggshell, being careful not to break any of the membrane. There's a big enough space that all it really has to do is just push out. But it's not.
I removed the plug in the top of the incubator so the other chicks could dry out, and just put it back in, having removed the other chicks. The temperature is just under 100 degrees farenheight.
This chick has already caused a LOT of drama, and mom REALLY doesn't want to loose it. Any information or suggestions would be greatly appriciated. </3

EDIT: It's moved just a bit, and given some weak chirps, but nothing more than that. It still hasn't made any progress. So far, it just seems really weak.

 

[mnferalkitty]

some chicks just arent able to make it out of the shell for various reasons, I don't try and help them I let nature take its course because in my experience helping chicks out of the shell just never seem to do will and have bad problems

 

[sumi]

Have a look here:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/step-by-step-guide-to-assisted-hatching

 

[loveourbirds]

I hadn't seen that article, excellent information.

 

[sumi]

It is. Have you seen this one:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/hatching-eggs-101

 

[loveourbirds]

i believe i read that article when i was doing research on incubation. but i forgot it had the chart for days and temps on it.
all i have are chickens and quail. so occasionally i have to look something up when hatching for someone else.

 

[loveourbirds]

guess i forgot about the parakeets but i don't hatch them LOL.

 

[SvinFold]

"The chick will move it's head in a jerky pipping motion as well as chirp lightly. The lungs are maturing and with this change in chest pressure it causes contractions which helps the yolk sac to be drawn inside the abdomen. Blood vessels at this stage also start to recede. If assisted prematurely it can cause hemorrhaging from the blood vessels and the yolk sac will be unable to absorb."

Well, I suppose this would have been helpful had I looked at it earlier x_x Good news though: the chick is alive! A few people, including myself, are refusing to call him/her anything but Trouble... So, baby Trouble is all right for now.
I'll be honest and say that we really didn't follow many of the rules, but I think we did rather all right with twelve out of eight-teen... Of course, I intend to do it right if my parents ever allow me to incubate eggs again.
How the story ended up going? I ended up hatching Trouble, by myself, which was nasty. I don't consider it a skill, nor do I ever plan to "assist" a chick to that degree again, but there were other matters that could be considered peer pressure. We did wait the twelve hours, mom panicked and asked me to make the hole bigger for it, which I did. Then I read a little, and found out that the lack of moisture, from opening the incubator to "help" the chick in the first place, could cause the inside membrane to cling to the chick, so at that point I just peeled the shell away almost entirely. There was no yolk sac that was visible, and I left whatever blood vessels that were left, alone. After that, all that was sticky started to dry up on her, so I took a warm, wet paper towel and laid her on it to try and moisten it back up... In the end, she was up and stumbling around with her incubator buddy, and all was well > _>

So, thank you all for the information I'll take back what I learned to the FFA chapter, and hopefully we'll have more success in the future, and I can teach mom and my sister not to panic when things are going normally<3
On another note though, what is everyone else's success rate? I mean, how many eggs actually make it in a batch if you do everything right?