I just looked and it does look like it's coming out of the belly button. So is it the sac? All our chicks hatched before have never had anything like this before.
Well, Friday the sac looked all dried up like an umbilical cord. So I kept the chick separated to keep it from being picked on. Saturday morning the chick seemed kind of wobbly and would fall over onto its back and couldn't right itself. By Saturday evening, the poor little chick died. Do chicks with unabsorbed sacs have a higher death rate than chicks who have it absorbed?
Mine hatched out today with a rough navel and another with some of the yolk hanging lose...it did suck it up and the chick now looks normal only after a few hours. So sorry yours didn't make it
I have four left to hatch...they are all pipped so I HOPE things go well and no more of that!
Well, they pip into the air cell before hatching, meaning they use their beak to break into it and breath air, and then they pip the egg itself before zipping and hatching. The Pip is that small hole that they make before they break away the top of the egg
My last batch (when I hatched out last years layer hens), 9 hatched at day 19 and the rest began to smell and hatch at day 21 with their yolk sac still out of their navel, sadly the yolk sac dried up and the chicks died. The remaining chicks I did not allow to hatch as they were smelling really horrible.
I assumed it was my incubator and I destroyed it. I felt that it was a temp issue.
I love to hatch babies, but you know, never again. I'll stick with the joys of everyone else's babies!
Sorry to hear you had to deal with the same yolk issues I did.