Help!!! Zip no hatch!

[ChickenChik]

I have 24 eggs in the incubator. It is hatch day and we have had 10 hatch so far! YAY! But I have 1 that has zipped half way around and stopped. He has stopped moving and I can't see his beak anymore! I also have about 4 more pips so I am scared to open to incubator and shrinkwrap the chicks!! Is there any way that I can help this little guy? Can I open it really quick and grab the egg or what? HELP HELP HELP!!!

 

[Lotsapaints]

The chick is absorbing the yolk leave it be and all will be okay. Remember when you lock down 5 days until you open the incubator....I know that is hard trust me I can't wait very good either....

 

[ChickenChik]

Is it okay if he has been zipped for about 12 hours?

 

[Lotsapaints]

oh yes I've had them pip and take 16 to 18 hrs before they did anything torture I tell you do not open the incubator those chicks can go 72 hours without food or water and they just started hatching today if there is something wrong with that chick you really can't do anything for it because it is removing the blood in the veins and absorbing the yolk. If you were to try anything it will bleed to death or look like it's intestines are falling out. Go to dinner over to a friends house balance the checkbook.....today I went riding so I wouldn't be looking in my windows at my eggs and they shouldn't hatch until Thursday...I so totally understand

 

[ChickenChik]

Ugh it's killing me! This is our first hatch. So I þhink we have been successful so for with 10 out of 23 hatched so far.

 

[lemurchaser]

Mine don't usually wait 12 hours after they start to zip. They'll pip and then wait forever, but they usually zip all at once in under 4 hours. Your best bet is to leave it alone though, I've gone in before, but you do risk the rest of your hatch.

 

[FenDruadin]

I agree with lemurchaser. That's a long time to go without finishing zipping. And I have had it go both ways--I've had a baby die in the middle of zipping, and I've had them get stuck but survive after being helped.

HOWEVER: If the baby is dead, you can't do anything about it. If it's just stuck, it will be just fine waiting for the next time you open the incubator.

I DO NOT wait five days to open my incubator. I have found that leaving large numbers of babies in the incubator with hatching babies is more dangerous than opening the incubator every 12 hours or so to remove the fluffed up babies. Here's what I do: When I have five or six babies hatched, I add a bunch of hot water to the incubator through a tube, to get the humidity off the charts high. Then I quickly open, remove all the dry hatched babies into a container beside the incubator (any old box or basket will do), remove their empty shells into a trash container right by the incubator, and pull out any eggs I've decided need help. All this I do very quickly but carefully--don't get in a *rush* because you'll drop something. Close the incubator.

Put the babies in the brooder, throw the shells in the trash. Do whatever you're going to do to help the egg that needs it. Then repeat the humidity procedure (adding hot water, unless the incubator humidity is still way high, in which case don't repeat) and return the egg to its place.

For a baby that's mostly zipped when it needs help (and the only time this has happened for me is when other babies slept on *top* of a zipping egg all night and sealed it in), I won't even place it back in the incubator. Instead, I prepare (ahead of time) a small box with its own heat lamp and a soft covering on the bottom--basically a miniature incubator without the precise temp controls (it doesn't even have to have a cover--you'd be surprised how warm a box with a lamp over it can get). After helping the baby zip, I leave it in its shell and set it in the make-shift brooder/incubator. It will usually then finish hatching on its own. If it doesn't, I'll help it with the next step. And so on. I leave it in the separate brooder until it is coordinated (but not necessarily all the way dry) enough to fend for itself with the older babies in the main brooder.

Good luck. I hope the baby's okay, but if it's not, you probably couldn't have done anything anyway. Some babies just aren't ready for the world, and so they don't come out.