Help I've broken one of my eggs!!

[bradronnie11]

Hi, not sure if this has been asked before, I have tried to search but with no luck.
Need a little advice. I have broken one of my eggs in the incubator, I dropped my torch on the top of it! I'm so mad at myself for being so clumsy! It has made a hole in the top and cracked half way down on the right hand side. A little of the shell has actually fell into the inside of the egg. My eggs are on day 18 so are supposed to be ready for lock down. The part of the egg with the hole in is where the air sac is, and from what I can see it hasn't damaged the internal membrane around the chick. The only thing I had to hand was tape as I couldn't use candle wax, the hole is too big! But I no for all the little cracks running off the hole it is nearly half covered in tape. The chick is still alive ( it's been only 1 hour ). Where do I go from here? Ie if chick try's to hatch, what do I do? Will it be ok as it's the air sac part that's had the damage so hopefully when it pecks through it will be able to breathe? Is there anything I can do better to help. I may have over done it with the tape through panic but now I know I cannot remove any as it will take the shell with it! I can't rest! I don't want this poor baby to die

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I would trim back the tape so that it covers the hole only. Then cover the edges of the tape and cracks with nail polish.

 

[bradronnie11]

Ok thank you I will try that now!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I've tried beeswax but had better luck with nail polish.

 

[bradronnie11]

Can it be normal nail varnish?

 

[bradronnie11]

Also should I just go over the cracks or should I go over the bit where the tape was , in case I've made the egg more porous?

 

[bradronnie11]

The tape is steaming up a little too where the hole is

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Well, you're on day 18 so I wouldn't worry about excess porosity. At this point, I'd worry more about getting the inner membrane too dry by messing with it and shrink wrapping the embryo so that it can't move.

 

[bradronnie11]

I've done what you said, thank you. Fingers crossed. This one was a perfect egg too!

 

[bradronnie11]

Just to update the broken egg hatched perfectly. She had tried to internally pip the area with the tape as I hadn't known when to remove it and had pips on other eggs so didn't want to open the bator. But she moved and popped out and she's a lovely black Plymouth Rock