Hatching help please!

[Dinosaur Village Keeper]

**Posted in the goose forum also**
First egg has pipped and while at first I was hopeful, now the shell has broken away but the membrane hasn’t broke from what I can tell. It is also yellow. The pip probably happened around noon today. About 4 hours ago. Worried sick because I followed the sticky incubation guide here exactly and went with a dry incubation, monitoring weight closely at a humidity of 25% throughout. Eggs have lost the correct amount of weight. Now I’m reading those humidity levels will shrink wrap them! What to trust?? Humidity is now 70%. Please help.

 

[Partipoodleva]

Usually if it's yellow that means dried out in my experience. Is the chick still moving that you can see? They can typically tear through so long as their breathing I feel like it's okay. It's an exhausting time for these little ones. Hatching can take up to 24hrs, so there may be nothing wrong. If it's much longer you can always go in and tear some of the membrane off and give them some wiggle room sometimes that's all they need. There are different methods of incubation lots of people do dry and are successful, I've never tried it but I've gotten attached to my incubator and only do smaller hatches. I try to cut myself some slack because if you think about it in nature, I seriously doubt humidity is perfect under a Mama hen. And they do just fine!

 

[Dinosaur Village Keeper]

Usually if it's yellow that means dried out in my experience. Is the chick still moving that you can see? They can typically tear through so long as their breathing I feel like it's okay. It's an exhausting time for these little ones. Hatching can take up to 24hrs, so there may be nothing wrong. If it's much longer you can always go in and tear some of the membrane off and give them some wiggle room sometimes that's all they need. There are different methods of incubation lots of people do dry and are successful, I've never tried it but I've gotten attached to my incubator and only do smaller hatches. I try to cut myself some slack because if you think about it in nature, I seriously doubt humidity is perfect under a Mama hen. And they do just fine!

I saw the yellow part move like the baby is pressing on it to try to break through. It now looks like it has a bit of a crack in it. How long do you think I should wait before I do something like put coconut oil on it? Is that what you would advise? Today is only day 27. I put the eggs in four different incubators.

Edit – I just took a picture of what it looks like now. Not sure if it’s worse? It is my only egg of this breed, and I am so hopeful it hatches.

 

[Dinosaur Village Keeper]

I took a pic of what is looks like this morning. It has been 18 hours since the first pip spot was noticed

 

[Partipoodleva]

My dear I sincerely apologize please forgive me. I recently lost all of my flock to a fox and I haven't been on here. I completely forgot about this in the process of everything. I hope and pray your baby came out okay.

 

[Dinosaur Village Keeper]

My dear I sincerely apologize please forgive me. I recently lost all of my flock to a fox and I haven't been on here. I completely forgot about this in the process of everything. I hope and pray your baby came out okay.

I am so sorry about your flock. My heart breaks for what you must have gone through.

Thank you for everything! It took 12 hours to get this little guy out of the shell once we started to assist. I love him so much!

 

[Partipoodleva]

Thank you so so much I really miss them, two different incidents lost both of my gorgeous roosters father and son and 5 of my Mama hens. Then my 20 darling babies that we'd just moved to our rolling coop. The thing broke through what we knew with certainty to be fox proof, lost half his coat in the process had to have been a young one. Has avoided our best efforts at capture. Never had a fox problem like this till the last year. It'll all be okay though I'm definitely better than I was.

He. Is. DARLING!!! I am so thrilled you were successful I know how scary it is. Can I be weird and say he has the most adorable cheeks?? Give him a big squeeze for me if he'll let you!