Heartbroken

[onwingsofdragons]

Only my second hatch out of my incubator. I purchased 18 local standard cochin eggs, out of those 18, 8 were viable. 6 chicks hatched out without a problem, they started picking at one who pipped an abnormally large hole and got it bleeding pretty good at which point I had 1 last egg with a small pip. I took the rest of the chicks out since they were dry and put them in the brooder and successfully used some quik stop on a q tip on the bleeding vessel and that chick hatched out okay a couple hours later. The last chick hatched out about 20 minutes ago. It was chirping, breathing and moving around well. I turned the light on in the incubator closet and that's when I saw it. The chick is missing 3/4 of it's skull with the brain completely exposed.

I WAS NOT PREPARED FOR THIS!!!!

 

[BrickWall Honey]

I've never had one, but I know that it happens.

 

[LTygress]

Was it possible that the other chicks did this, or did this happen in the shell (as in, it never developed)?

New hatch chicks are BEYOND curious and will peck at everything to see what it is. Anything moving and wet tends to get much more attention, and more pecks. I've had slightly older chicks (roughly one week older) bite each other's toes off, thinking it was food. But I have never had any break IN to a shell to peck at a moving chick inside, and do serious damage, although I don't doubt it could happen.

 

[LTygress]

As for being prepared, be ready for a LOT of disgusting and shocking things as you raise chicks and chickens.

 

[onwingsofdragons]

There was only 1 chick in with the one with the exposed brain and that was the one getting picked on when I took the other chicks out of the incubator. I guess it's just one of those things that happen, but man... I mean I have had 4 kids in unassisted home births. I pop em out, clean up the mess and go about my day. My husband is a butcher... I've seen some gnarly, gruesome stuff in my day. I just didn't consider the possibility that a chick could hatch with that kind of malformation and still be alive! I certainly didn't expect to have to cull one my second hatch. I was really caught off guard to say the least. I put myself in "medical emergency mode" and handled things in a professional manner and I'm pretty okay right now, but as many years as I've stalked these forums, this is the only place I felt comfortable coming to for emotional support at the time of my moment of breakdown. I'd MUCH rather not have to do that again any time soon though!

 

[LTygress]

It can be pretty stressful, I know!

I had one actually get pecked on the head until it was bleeding, and still lived just fine. I had to separate him, but he healed and grew up with no problems.

Although my worst experience in "against the odds" animal birth was dealing with a rabbit that gave birth to seven babies, and apparently got too carried away cleaning them. She cleaned the actual SKIN right off of some of them! One was almost completely exposed, and he died. Another one just had a "sore" on his side from it. And yet another one had a huge hole in the skin on his head, and his ear was gone! But mother nature has some incredible ways of making things work sometimes, and that one head wound scabbed over and healed up and he grew up... with only one ear! He did actually develop a hole where his ear SHOULD have been, so he could probably still hear. But it looked funny with a rabbit that had only one ear sticking up off of his head. I called him Epoh (EE-poe) which is just Hope spelled backwards. And he was fine for four years until a loose neighborhood cat got into my yard and into his enclosure somehow. But the problems his mommy caused by cleaning him too hard never affected him.