HELP! Hatching Chicks Dilemma: What Would You Do?

[Sally Sunshine]

I just wanted to update to say that I just got home. The one who I was worried would have died while I was at work is up there rocking and rolling, and it looks like it's almost completely worked around the crown of the egg.

Thank you all so much for sharing your experiences and knowledge. I know I only have a handful of posts on this site, but it really is my first destination when I have a question about my chickens (usually my question has already been answered somewhere, but this morning I was so frantic I couldn't make my brain take the time to search through the forums). Thank you for the support!

Ok good! A zip (not a pip) chick should be all way zipped around and out of egg in less than an hour.

 

[Sally Sunshine]

@Sally Sunshine Its so nice to see you back home doing what you do best. Love you brat.

Love u too brattier and stubborner

 

[Anon112]

So the chick seemed to have mostly zipped when I got home at 3:30 yesterday. But when it was still in the shell at 5:30, I took a quick peak and it hadn't gotten as far around as I thought. About 1/3 of the shell was still intact. At 9:30, still the same and I noticed that the exposed areas of membrane were starting to harden and stick to the chick. I used tweezers to chip away the egg (but not the membrane) on the remainer of what wasn't zipped. Then I left it overnight. This morning (5am) it is still in the shell. The membrane where it was exposed to air is really hard (does that mean the humidity is too low? My hygrometer says 70%, but maybe it's off?), like, cement hard. I used a q-tip and some warm water to soften the membrane. As the chick felt the warm water (or maybe as it felt the membrane soften) it seemed to really be moving around in my hand. The unzipped membrane showed almost no veins--they were incredibly thin and not at all vibrant in color. After wetting the membrane I set it back in the incubator.

Is it possible that the chick is stuck to the membrane inside the egg? I took really seriously the warning in the article about not forcing a hatch too soon. Right now this chick is sitting in its egg with the cap held on just by a bit of damp membrane. Here's the timeline on this hatch so far:

Day 1: (Sometime before 5:30 am) Chick pips--membrane around hole is tan color when I see it at 5:30am
Day 2: (Sometime before 3:30pm) Chick has partly zipped egg
Day 2: (9:30) I removed 1/3 of shell remaining
Day 3: (5am) I wet membrane under what I tweezed and around edge of zip line

So it's at least 48 hours since it first pipped. I don't know if this matters, but the zip line, from studying pictures, was a little lower than maybe it should have been. When the chick pushes in the egg I can see that it doesn't seem to have much leverage however it's positioned (though from what I can see its body is in the "normal" hatch position from the diagrams).

Should I just wait another few hours?

 

[Anon112]

So I dampened the membrane again at 7:30. There was a piece that was almost fused to its little face (one of the edges from where it originally pipped), and so after it was very damp I gently moved it away. It now seems to have much more mobility with its head, and its head keeps vanishing inside the egg, where it almost looks like it's trying to eat/chew at the membrane inside the shell? I'm reminding myself of that quote in the article that if it can breathe, it's okay for a good while.

 

[Anon112]

This time when I wetted the membrane, the chick started really kicking and as I put it back in the incubator it kicked free of the egg. I noticed that there was some mushy black stuff at the very bottom of the egg (is it possible the chick pooped in the egg?). This is now about 56 hours since it first pipped.

I think that I over-interfered with this little chick and I feel awful. If I incubate again, I think I need to invest in someone to slap my hand away if I reach for the incubator.

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Did u read this? Also a chick will not zip around she'll until it's absorbed and ready to hatch. If you assisted a pip then follow that article. If in fact it had zipped it would be out by now. Read what I wrote.

 

[Sally Sunshine]

For future reference.... Once a chick is pipped it can get out 99 percent of the time if you don't keep opening the bator and fudging with the eggs or picking at pips.

 

[Granny Hatchet]

Its stuck, I would of helped it out already.

 

[Anon112]

Did u read this? Also a chick will not zip around she'll until it's absorbed and ready to hatch. If you assisted a pip then follow that article. If in fact it had zipped it would be out by now. Read what I wrote.

When I got home from work that day it had zipped about 2/3 of the shell. But then nothing else six hours later.

The article you linked said this: "You can tell the chick is having trouble if it gets stuck for several hours in the MIDDLE of the unzipping stage, either pointlessly banging its beak against the hole without making further openings in the shell or mostly unzipped but unable to kick free. . . or if the bit of exposed membrane around the pipping hole is starting to turn tan and dry."

The membrane around the pipped hole was tan (it was actually tan and dry looking by the time I saw it on the first morning, which leads me to think that it had pipped much earlier in that night).

I think, though, that I just needed to follow this advice: "DO NOT TOUCH THAT EGG!"

I've been to fussy with the eggs and needed to just have more patience and let them do their thing. I wish I'd found your article before this hatch started, because once it seemed like something was going wrong my brain just went into this panicked, irrational mode and I was having trouble following the advice and steps that I knew were correct to do. I had read this bit: "What if she DOESN’T Finish and ZIP? . . . If after 6-8 hours and there is still NO PROGRESS in her pipping you will need to remove the “CAP” Air cell end of the egg . . ." and didn't realize until a reread that it only applied if you had helped with the initial pip.

What are the correct steps if a chick is stuck in the middle of unzipping? Mine had stopped unzipping by 3:30pm yesterday and hadn't resumed by 9:30.