Help! Chick partially unzipped, tried to push but is stuck.

[zach_arneth]

Hey all,

I've read plenty of articles about when to assist and all of that, but I'm worried she is stuck, because she only unzipped about a quarter of the shell, has been trying to push out for 12 hours, and has most of her head outside of the shell. Should I interfere or wait? Here is a picture...

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

Is the chick still stuck? It looks pretty wet so maybe its just tired...

 

[zach_arneth]

We ended up assisting. The membrane had dried and was partially covering its eye, so we wet a bunch of paper towels with warm water, softened up the membrane, and then were able to peel it back easily. We could see that it was fully ready to come out of the shell by seeing inside, so we chipped away little by little with tweezers until the opening was big enough to crawl out. It took a few minutes for the chick to unbend after being in that position for so long, but it's now standing and chirping loudly. It was definitely stuck so we made the right call on this one.