First hatch!!

[Mos]

Hello everyone on BYC!
I started incubating for the first time about 3 weeks ago, 9 shipped eggs. 5 made it to lockdown, although with quite severe saddle air cells. They reached quite low down on the sides of the egg and after reading a lot about the risks I thought that they for sure must become malpositioned because of it and I - as a complete novice - would be terrified throughout the entire hatching. But I placed them with largest dip in air cell up, and hoped for the best.
Yesterday (day 19), three of them had externally pipped right on the line of marked air cell. The joy and relief I felt!!
One of them was very eager to get out and when I went to look how everything was going at 1:00 am (no.. No I could not fall asleep ) he had started to zip! So i stayed up to watch this amazing event and when he was out and trying to find balance to get to his feet he pushed around the rest of the eggs. I thought "oohhh noo" but did nothing as I'd read that they will be fine.

Now about 10 hours later, I'm wondering about the bad air cells, if maybe I should've corrected their position so they have big side of air cell up again? But the chick is still in there with them and would probably just roll them over again. What do you think? Will they be ok?
And the lonely little earlybird has still not fluffed out completely. He has one fluffy spot on the back, his wings, butt and chest are fairly fluffy but the feathers on his head and the rest of his back has just dried up and become hard. Will I have to do something about that?
And he is feeling quite lonely and is at times even pecking at the pips of the other eggs!! Should I share with him what I've learned about the importance of not rushing the hatching process?

 

[bpoore04]

I don’t know anything about hatching but any updates?

 

[Perris]

x2 - and hello @Mos ! welcome to BYC
do please let us know what happened! It looks like everyone missed the original post

 

[Mos]

Everything is going very well!! I'm quite exhausted from worrying these past few days, but now they are all doing good (and I sure do hope it stays that way... ).
All 5 hatched, after the first one three others came within 30 minutes after each other. Then there was the last one, which had not externally pipped, although it looked like it was one of the early ones that had internally pipped when I checked just before putting them in lockdown. That one had the most severe saddle air cell, reaching far down the sides. I had started with 30-35% humidity but after candling that egg halfway through I realized I had to up the humidity a bit to keep it from growing any smaller.

So after all other 4 chicks had hatched I put them in the brooder to keeep them from rolling around the last egg (from which the chick was frantically peeping). I decided to make a safety hole and left it for a while longer. Still no progress but constantly peeping loudly so I opened up a bit more to check and she had her leg over her head and looked pretty much fixed in that position because the air cell reached so far down both sides. Her membrane looked ready for hatch so I made the hole in the membrane around her beak bigger and after that just watched her from the outside of the incubator. After a while she managed to kick out of the shell. I was at first horrified cause I thought it looked like she had a big bump on her neck like her skeleton was deformed and I went to bed devastated looking up info on how to cull a baby chick.. It felt absolutely surreal that it might have to come to that.
THANKFULLY next morning when I checked on the fluffier baby chick in the incubator she looked like a normal chick (except a bit of a foot problem I wrote about in a different thread), and I assumed that after having been all tucked up in a small egg her body still looked a bit wonky to me at first.
But I was so incredibly relieved that there were no deformities on the little one.
She's smaller than the rest but eating and drinking well like the others and I hope I won't run into anything more to worry about until I can get some proper sleep first!

First chick:

Second chick:

Third chick:

First and third:

Fourth chick:

First four:

Fifth chick:

 

[Mos]

They really like this box of pens, they are often gathered around it inspecting it

They are so stinkin cute I can't handle it!

 

[Perris]

congratulations! they are adorable!

 

[Brady bunch]

They are so adorable!!!
I don’t know much about hatching but, GREAT JOB!!!

 

[casportpony]

Congrats!

 

[Mos]

Thank you all!!

 

[LeslieG87]

@Mos congrats and they look so healthy!!! Loving that brinsea heating element, too