My son heard an egg yesterday morning under our 1/4 pheasant 3/4 silkie hen who had been incubating 2 eggs for us. I had not written the date when she started setting. Mistake #1. The chick had pecked a fairly good sized hole in the egg. Late evening my son checked the egg again. The chick wasn't peeping and had not gotten further in her escape from the egg. We decided to help. Mistake #2. It wasn't until I got a good amount of egg off her, the blood started coming and I noticed the yolk still quite large under her. I coudn't put her back under the hen because she would smother. So we brought the chick and the 1/4 of her egg that was left to the house and made an incubator out of my son's old plastic mouse house, wettened paper towels and a heat lamp. Then we prayed hard to God to save our chick from our stupidity. I woke every 2 hrs. to check the temp. and app. humidity. It is now almost 6:00 24 hrs. after our undesired help and the chick seems to be doing fine. She's warm and moist, not wet, and cheeps from time to time and her yolk is about the size of the tip of my finger. I assume we were 2 to 3 days early in our "help". Does anyone know anything else we can do to help her survive and thrive?
