HELP is this baby DEAD or ALIVE?

[Raltarnee]

To cut very long story short is this egg still viable do you think? A smaller hole appeared 2 days ago & just now as nothing had happened I made in tiny bit bigger. I looks fully developed & there's no blood but also there's no movement in the beak & it's not responding in any way... Should I leave it or help it out or just bury it? ps there's no bad smell coming from it....!

 

[FridayYet]

If it is alive, you probably won't hurt it to open it a bit more, especially after 2 days. If it's dead, you can't hurt it at all.

 

[FridayYet]

Usually I wait about 24 hours from pip before I do anything. Then I peel back a tiny bit of shell and see if I can see any veins. If you see veins or blood, it goes back in the incubator for a while.

Do you see any movement or breathing at all? If not, I'm afraid your chick has expired. Sorry.

 

[Raltarnee]

Unfortunately didn't hear any pips just noticed the hole so was waiting for it to show some progress... 6x eggs rescued from abandoned nest 9x days ago & she'd been of it lots for days prior so honestly Wed I was planning to bury them all & then found 1x had hatched, how it survived I don't know then another hatched yesterday so that's why I'm really, really reluctant to bury it before I knew without a doubt lol...

 

[FridayYet]

You have every reason to be cautious. Go ahead and start opening it a little at a time. It should start moving if it's alive. Once you know for sure it's dead, then you'll feel better about burying it.

 

[Raltarnee]

I did as you suggested and unfortunately he had died which I was able to see very clearly just by making that hole a little bigger so he was able to be buried in his shell. Thanks for your advice

 

[FridayYet]

Well congratulations on the ones you saved and sorry this one got so close but didn't make it.