Hands on hatching and help

[Rachof8]

We have a sweet little duckling has not made any improvement in the last 12 hours. She has a hole made where her beak is but no zipping. This is our first year hatching and the 4 we've hatched so far hatched pretty quickly and were very uneventful hatches, but now I'm worried about this one! It's been about 24 hours since she started hatching, but no improvement in the last 12. She's chirping and it sounds strong. Her beak is out. Should we assist or wait longer?And if so, what is the best way to do that?

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[BelovedBirds]

We have a sweet little duckling has not made any improvement in the last 12 hours. She has a hole made where her beak is but no zipping. This is our first year hatching and the 4 we've hatched so far hatched pretty quickly and were very uneventful hatches, but now I'm worried about this one! It's been about 24 hours since she started hatching, but no improvement in the last 12. She's chirping and it sounds strong. Her beak is out. Should we assist or wait longer?And if so, what is the best way to do that?

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What breed is she?
do not fret. Ducklings typically take 24-48 hours from external pip to zip. They go slowly, even if some race through it, it's not the norm.
Keep an eye on her, but as long as she can breathe she's safe for now. Intervening too soon could break blood vessels and cause a bleed, or risk rupturing remaining yolk.

If she is yawning and chewing, she is still absorbing yolk and needs longer.

 

[CactusAdjacent]

One of the first things that I learned as a paramedic was that you can't kill a dead person... what does that mean? If they are already dead, you really can't hurt them. So you do everything that you can to help them. The only place you have to go from there is up.

This! I've had to explain the philosophy with broken electronics- "I can't make it not work MORE but there's a chance I can fix it. If it's still broken, nothing changed. If I fix it, awesome!"

 

[Waterfaery]

Hi, I have four eggs in lockdown and yesterday I noticed one of them has a small hole down near the pointy end. At first, I thought it was a pip by a malpositioned chick. I've had plenty of those before so I wasn't too worried but all day today the chick has been rocking and cheeping loudly. I felt it just didn't seem ok so I candled it and the chick has actually pipped internally.

So now I'm wondering what the little hole is and if it will cause a problem. Could the chick have pipped at the wrong end and then managed to get itself the right way round? I wouldn't have thought that was likely but I don't know how else the hole might have got there?

Either way, I'm wondering if the chick is at extra risk of shrinkwrapping because of the hole? It's still frantically shaking and rocking around. I don't know if I should do anything or not?

Thanks so much for any advice.

 

[newchickychick]

I really, really need to give a heartfelt thanks to this thread. Truly. I'm praying I did the right thing, as we have two others that have pipped, but we had one Bantam that had been trying to hatch since about 1 a.m. last night (well, this morning). I know it hadn't been 12 or 24 hours yet, but I noticed the membrane looked like it was dry. It was right under the fan/in the middle so maybe it was getting the brunt of the heat. The chick itself just didn't seem like it was strong enough to get through. Its chirps went from lively to really slowing down and sounding exhausted. I made a judgement call to pull it out and wet the membrane, then noticed on the underside, it'd had another chick's membrane mess (placenta? membrane? chick stuff) dried to the shell which practically glued it around the zip it had already been making. I was able to pull that off and helped the chick hatch in my hand, and it's now back in the incubator drying off. It seems SO exhausted. Maybe it would've been fine, and maybe I'll need to help others now, but the chick really didn't seem like it would've made it through the shell after the zip it'd made had been closed shut. (The incubator was open about 10 seconds per grab...) The chick went from making distressed and lethargic chirps to now making soft, happier chirps as it's resting from the hatch. I really don't know if I did good or not here, but I'm hoping it ends up alright. It is a little Red Jungle Fowl Bantam named Tomato.
He was so tired after the hatch, but is now starting to wiggle around. I'm hopeful for this baby, and hopeful for the others!