HELP!! Chick taking waaay to long to hatch!!*

If the shell looks like the blood's still there, leave him alone. They do wait to absorb all the blood before hatching. Sometimes they pip first then sit for hours. I would make sure the humidity is real high, and leave the top shut!

 

he is resting from working so hard. at this point I would be worried about dehydration. You said the membrane might be dried out? If it is, this could make it much harder as you suspect. If the humidity is where it should be though then the membrane should'nt be getting that dry. Wait a bit to see if someone more experienced than me (i have not seen this exact problem) will respond. There are enough on here that someone has encountered this exact problem.

 

Quote:We must have been writing at the same time...I was hoping someone like you would respond.

 

Hatching is a process, not an instantaneous event. The chick internal pips, external pips, and finally zips and pushes itself out into the world. It lays there wet and pitiful. But it soon gets up and plays rugby with the unhatched eggs and fluffs up. During this process it dries up the external blood vessels it no longer needs, absorbs the yolk, learns to breathe air instead of live in a liquid world, and who knows what else. This is tiring so it does occasionally rest. If you try to help it before it is ready, you can cause harm. Patience really is your best friend during hatch, hard as that can be. And not all make it on their own. The hard part for me is to know when to intervene. I don't always get that part right.

Some chicks do a lot of the stuff they need to do between internal pip and external pip. These usually zip pretty soon after external pip. Some do a lot between external pip and zip. I have not seen any take this long myself, but some people have reported as much as 24 hours between pip and zip. Those are nerve-wracking.

It sounds like the membrane may have been a little dry on the first one, though that may just have been that you maybe should have waited. I'm not there looking at them so I can only guess by what you post. I also don't know what the humidity is in the incubator. If the humidity is low, you might want to increase it. I don't know which incubator you have or how it is set up, but you raise humidity by increasing water surface area. If others have pipped it is usually best to not open the incubator to add sponges or wet paper towels. If you have empty water reservoirs in your incubator, you can maybe use a straw through a vent hole and a syringe to add water. Use warm water, around 100 degrees F. Incubators don't shed heat real well. If you add hot water, you can get a temperature spike, which is not good. If you add cold water, the temperature may temporarily drop but the heater should bring the temperature back up pretty quickly. That temperature drop is not all that bad a thing. Heat is more of an enemy than cool. But warm water will evaporate faster and bring the humidity up quicker. My humidity usually goes up by 10% to 15% when the ahtch starts, so this may not be a problem for you. But just something to consider. To me, 60% is kinda low.

 

chicks will usually pip, then hatch within 24 hours of pip, but i've had some go as long as 36 hours without problems. I would say though, if you've already had him out the membranes will be dryer than they should so it's likely he will be stuck and need help. but wait as long as you can. remember, a chick has the yolk to sustain him another 24 hours after hatch, so having him stuck in the egg a bit longer isn't always a bad thing. pulling him early is.

but listen to the chick. he'll tell you when he's ready. normally they'll peep from inside the egg, but when his peeps start sounding frantic, then it might be time to check on him.

I would remove some of the shell without touching the membrane if you can, and use a q-tip with warm/hot water and dampen the membrane to see if there are still any active blood vessels. if not then you can start pulling the membrane back. if you see any new blood stop and put him back immediately as he's not ready. pipping on the small end, chicks often rupture a vessel or 3 on their own, but if they're healthy the bleeding will stop quickly.

in my experience, i tend to pull the membrane back and fold it over the edge of the shell. that way if there is any bleeding, the fold can actually bind the blood vessel to minimize it. whatever you do, do NOT cut the membrane. if there are active vessels, cutting will cause it to bleed profusely, where tearing causes the vessel to shrink back on itself and stop up faster.

but again, wait until the chick sounds like he's in trouble before you do anything, and you'll be less likely to encounter bleeding.