Hatched chick broke anothers egg!?

[bugglesmommy]

This is my first hatching. Only 6 of the initial 18 eggs were fertile. On day 22, yesterday, I had a beautiful, strong Astralop chick hatch. Some others were peeping but none had cracked the shell as of this morning. I left chick one in there for the first day, but she is active and clumsy. Now I see a dime sized piece of shell off of another egg with membrane over it except were the beak is poking out and cheeping in the center of the egg. It had not even been cracked an hour ago. Did chick 1 do this? Can the other chick survive? What should I do?

 

[Overoberyl]

This is my first hatching. Only 6 of the initial 18 eggs were fertile. On day 22, yesterday, I had a beautiful, strong Astralop chick hatch. Some others were peeping but none had cracked the shell as of this morning. I left chick one in there for the first day, but she is active and clumsy. Now I see a dime sized piece of shell off of another egg with membrane over it except were the beak is poking out and cheeping in the center of the egg. It had not even been cracked an hour ago. Did chick 1 do this? Can the other chick survive? What should I do?

It is likely that the second chick is hatching. What you're seeing is a pip. Unless there is bleeding around the hole in the membrane it's probably just the natural hatching process taking place. The already hatched chick will tend to jostle around the unhatched eggs, but probably won't do any damage. You can always remove the already hatched chick and put in the brooder so you don't have to worry.

 

[bugglesmommy]

Unfodtunately something became apparently wrong with the hatch. The chick was horribly deformed. Its head was large, too large and neck bent at a locked twist. Its feet were twisted. It could not stand or move its head. This is heart- breaking, especially on my first hatch. At least it wasn't my first egg. One of the others is cracking. Why was my first chick healthy and the second like this? Was it something I did or was in bad luck?

 

[Overoberyl]

Unfodtunately something became apparently wrong with the hatch. The chick was horribly deformed. Its head was large, too large and neck bent at a locked twist. Its feet were twisted. It could not stand or move its head. This is heart- breaking, especially on my first hatch. At least it wasn't my first egg. One of the others is cracking. Why was my first chick healthy and the second like this? Was it something I did or was in bad luck?

Unlikely to be something you did, these things happen and unfortunately with incubating & hatching you will get used to losing some here and there. It's tough at first but it is sometimes unavoidable. The health of the parent stock, genetics, incubation conditions, could be any number of things, not all of which are in your control. Don't beat yourself up over it, it happens, and unless it becomes a pattern I wouldn't worry about it. You may want to go over to the Incubating & Hatching eggs forum, there is a ton of info there, about things that can go wrong and possible explanations. I will try to find one of the threads if I can...

Hopefully you will have another healthy chick hatch with this next one!

 

[noahsmom]

I'm so sorry! I know this has to be heart breaking, if your anything like me then I know it must be completely breaking your heart.

I hope the rest of your eggs will hatch healthy chicks for you & hopefully you can get some replies with some sort of answer. I will be having hatching eggs shipped to me the first of march and I'm praying everything will go smoothly. I believe hatching eggs is definitely not for the faint at heart, which I am but I want to try the experience and having chickens I think you just have to understand life-death is the way it goes.
Keeping fingers crossed for you everything else goes smoothly.