My daughter wants to be an agricultural scientist when she grows up, and we keep backyard chickens as well. I am helping her to hatch some eggs as an educational experience. Well it has been an education all right! I hadn't done my research and made numerous mistakes. I am so angry with myself. I didn't know about lockdown so kept turning the eggs and opening the incubator. Day 21 my first baby was half way out and dead when I got up, so I panicked with the second and helped her out ( there was blood and I still did it which I now know was a big mistake). It is alive though, and doing OK at present. Four more hatched normally, but one did so the next night and drown in the water inside the incubator because it knocked the lid off. I was devastated when I found it. It is day 22 now and there are three eggs left and they haven't pipped ( I think we opened the incubator too much and disturbed the humidity). What should I do? Just wait another day? There is no movement from them and I am very worried that they too are dead. Could I save them by opening them? HELP.
Opening them up would not save them. They have to absorb the yolk and the membranes have to receed as part of the hatching process. You can candle and if there are no internal pips you can water candle. There is nothing you can do at this stage though to "help them hatch" if they are still alive.