First time incubating

[Jtaranc]

So I read all the things I was suppose to. Bought an incubator on Amazon and tried it out. Our incubator automatically goes into lock down and stops rotating eggs and jacks up the humidity. We didn’t have to do much. I told my husband NOT to open the incubator.

On day 21 our first egg hatched, then another, I had to go to work and my husband was home with them. He said when the eggs would pip and you could hear chirping the other chicks would run over to that egg and start pecking and busting the chick out of the egg.

Is that normal?

 

[WVduckchick]

Yep, totally normal! Pretty chicks, congrats on the hatch!

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Very normal behavior.... whether it is actually attempting to assist the other chick or simply a matter of chicks peck anything that makes noise moves or seems remotely interesting.. that's debatable

 

[Ridgerunner]

I have not seen that to that extent but with chickens anything is possible. Is there any way to get a video of that so we can see it?

If a chick is sitting there pecking away pieces of the shell from an egg that has pipped but the blood vessels have not yet dried up or if the chick has not yet absorbed the yolk it could be an issue. But if it is just a random peck I don't see the problem.

I don't usually open the incubator until the hatch is over. Why take a chance on causing a problem if you don't need to? But if I have an emergency I'll take care of the emergency and take my chances. If I saw a chick just stand there and constantly peck away opening the hole and causing bleeding I'd take that chick out. But I've never seen the need to do that. Probably what he is seeing is normal.