HELP! Need advice regarding shelf liner, on day 20

[dcorrell]

Congratulations on your little peeps! I wish I had come across your post sooner. The first time I hatched chicks I calculated my hatch date wrong, not sure if that happened to you too but you actually start counting AFTER 24hours have passed, that's day 1. I initially said "day 1" was the day I set my eggs and also panicked when nothing happened on day 21. Fortunately since you set the Nurture Right with "days til hatch" it is a good gauge to remind you if you're panicking early or if the chicks are hatching late, lol.

Thanks! I do like this incubator compared to others I have seen my daughter-in-law use in the past. It's easy to set more days on it to continue if you need to. I wish they had thought out the heavy top though and made more of a lip on it. I set the bator down in the brooder to take the lid off otherwise they would be falling off pretty far once they go hopping! At least I now know where the term worried like a Mother Hen comes from!

 

[dcorrell]

 

[dcorrell]

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I was so proud of this little one getting through my hacked tape job! I was on pins and needles just cheering it on! Strong happy baby!

 

[dcorrell]

Sorry those didn't quite post up right! I have one more baby I'm waiting for. I even had the confidence to take those other babies out of the bator and tape a chip in the egg! THANKS to all of you for helping me along with this! I really mean that! You guys are awesome!

 

[LynnaePB]

Aww so glad to hear the chick in the cracked egg hatched so well! Congratulations, the babies are adorable, what a great hatch!!!

I hope the last baby makes an appearance soon too!

 

[dcorrell]

Aww so glad to hear the chick in the cracked egg hatched so well! Congratulations, the babies are adorable, what a great hatch!!!

I hope the last baby makes an appearance soon too!

OH MY GOSH!!! JUST WHEN I THOUGHT WE WERE IN THE HOME STRETCH
SOOOO my little darlin' rolled its egg in the bator and cracked it pretty darn good. I thought it was must have been trying to pip because I could hear it all day peeping but NOPE, just a horribly chipped egg! I figured the poor thing doesn't have much to loose so I investigate. I get out the coconut oil, bacitracin, and my flat tip tweezers. I briefly take the egg out and take off the already hanging chips very carefully and remove just a few chips above my air cell line ONLY to find the little darlin' is mispositioned itself fully inside the air cell I see a tiny bit of red blood, dab it with a dry paper towel and cover the opening with my oil and ointment and put it back in the bator with a wee bit of that darned shelf liner to keep it from rolling anymore. I am putting up some pictures of what I have going now It is still breathing and once in awhile I can see it try and move its head to the tiniest of holes in the membrane (see pic for the bitty hole). I figure I should not only keep checking on it here for it breathing but probably moisten it with the oil every couple hours? ANY ADVICE MY FRIENDS?

 

[LynnaePB]

Oh no, I'm so sorry that little one managed to chip the shell so badly! It sounds like you are doing a really good job trying to help the baby. As long as the membrane is not drying out you should be good (I haven't used oil before just water which was a pain since it dried quickly but I've heard the oil should last a lot longer so hopefully you'll not have to re-apply the oil too many times).

I don't really have any advice that the assisted hatching article doesn't have. The little one sounds like a strong baby (I'm amazed it managed to chip off that much shell) I bet it stands a good chance, it's really good it has access to air and that it didn't bleed much! Good luck!!!!

 

[dcorrell]

Oh no, I'm so sorry that little one managed to chip the shell so badly! It sounds like you are doing a really good job trying to help the baby. As long as the membrane is not drying out you should be good (I haven't used oil before just water which was a pain since it dried quickly but I've heard the oil should last a lot longer so hopefully you'll not have to re-apply the oil too many times).

I don't really have any advice that the assisted hatching article doesn't have. The little one sounds like a strong baby (I'm amazed it managed to chip off that much shell) I bet it stands a good chance, it's really good it has access to air and that it didn't bleed much! Good luck!!!!

It rolled across and cracked it on the window. There seems to be quite a bit of fluid in the membrane yet. It really seems to struggle pushing its beak through that little hole. It almost seems like it is stuck and can't move its little body, just its beak to poke through the hole sporadically. I am assuming that is how it is getting air. I don't plan on intervening too much but come tomorrow if it hasn't been able to stretch out to move its shell, I may think twice about it...

 

[dcorrell]

HELP! Baby is out but I don't know what is going on here! Is this his umbilical cord still attached to the shell he is dragging around? There is some eggshell on his bottom but not sure if that is all that I see here? Is that unabsorbed yolk? ANYONE?!

 

[CluckNDoodle]

HELP! Baby is out but I don't know what is going on here! Is this his umbilical cord still attached to the shell he is dragging around? There is some eggshell on his bottom but not sure if that is all that I see here? Is that unabsorbed yolk? ANYONE?!

The cord will dry and fall off naturally. If it's attached to the shell you can break off the shell around it so it's only pulling that little tiny bit around so you don't have to take the chance of cutting too early and causing bleeding.
I can't see it in the picture well but if it's a tiny enough sort of hernia it will also go in on it's own without assistance. I actually had my first chick with a hernia just a few days ago and she's perfectly fine and running around in the brooder now and I didn't do anything other than wait.
FYI I'm always careful to keep my brooder clean but it's especially important when you have a chick that could possibly still have something exposed because you don't want it getting an infection but when you wake up and read this I imagine the hernia will already be receeding if it's small.