The chick is doing much better this morning. She's dry and fluffy and stumbling around the brooder. We have the brooder all warmed up and in the warmest room of the house with the heater up higher than we'd normally have it.
But let me tell you, I'm really glad we took her out.
Last night the second egg hatched. I'd already been up every hour checking on the first chick, so when I was woken up by intense squawking from the incubator, I had absolutely no energy left to check on it. By the time I was actually awake, chick #2 was dead. What we think happened is that she flailed around so much that the cheap bator got knocked around too much and opened. The squawking attracted my chicken guard cat (I kid you not) and he tried to bring me the baby. She was found on the carpet halfway between me and the incubator. The cat looks upset and keeps staring at the blood spots on the carpet and back at me. All night till this point he'd been guarding the brooder box with the new chick rather than the playpen with the month old chicks he'd been guarding before.
Egg #3 got knocked around and was found in the water dish in the bottom of the incubator. I put everything back together as fast as I could and am trying to warm the incubator back up. But lonely in there, the egg needed stuff to prop it in the right position. I don't know if I should give up on #3 or not.
Now, before you write me off as a nutcase because of the cat... We have two cats, brothers, and one just doesn't seem "cat-like" while the other does. This un-cat-like cat is my baby and is always out to please me. The first thing I did when the older chicks got here is make sure he knew they were MY chicks, not toys and not lunch. After that he has guarded them every single night. He sleeps right next to their brooder. Now, when his brother comes near the chicks, he growls. We've watched him chase his brother away from the chicks several times. When the chicks are out running around, he sits patiently watching them and only moves if he thinks they've gone where I don't want them to be. He also watched me take care of the new chick all night. So my guess is that when he first heard the 2nd hatchling chirping last night, he might've tried to wake me up but went to take care of things when I wouldn't get up. Perhaps he thought he could bring me the chick like a mama cat would move a kitten. I know I may be wrong, but... yeah...
