How long from pip to zip?

[Jocasta]

I came down this morning at 7am to discover one of my eggs had pipped (I use that term lightly as there was no clear hole, just a bump in the shell if that makes sense). Over six hours later and it looks exactly the same. A few others have pipped now too, none of them making much progress (well, not as fast as I'd like anyway

). So, how long can it take between pip and zip? I'm sure it'll be fine but I'm needing a distraction anyway so thought I'd ask. Also, if it's the same after x, y, z number of hours, it'd be nice to be able to just stop worrying about it - and knowing when to be sure it's died etc.

TIA

 

[gfcm]

Up to 24 hours is what I've read. You can search 'how long from pip to zip'. That's what I did.
I'm excited for you! I go on lock down tomorrow!

 

[Ridgerunner]

The answer is a several minutes to many, many worrying hours. The many hours is the usual situation. That bump is a pip, by the way.

During the final hatching stage, the chick needs to absorb the yolk, dry up certain blood vessels, and go through some more changes before it can safely come out of the shell. Some chicks do a lot of this between internal pip and external pip. These usually hatch pretty quickly after external pip. Some do most of this after external pip. These are the ones we worry about. Some even zip an come out before completely finishing the process. Many of these make it fine, but anywhere along this process, bad things can happen. If you help a chick before it is ready, you can easily kill the chick.

There is no clear deadline when you know everything is hopeless. I once shrink-wrapped a chick when I opened the incubator during lockdown to handle another problem. The chick had externally pipped but was then stuck. About 36 hours later when I opened the incubator to take the rest of the chicks out, that chick was still alive. I helped it since it was my fault it was in trouble. That chick did fine.

 

[gfcm]

There we go! Some advice from a seasoned hatcher! (I've read many of your posts)

 

[Jocasta]

Thank you so much. I've read so, so much about incubation and hatching. I've given advice similar to what I've just received but the actual living it is so much harder than I figured it would be lol! I told myself that when I set them for lock down, I wouldn't check them again for 48hrs. The incubator is high up in my dining room so that should have been easy but I couldn't resist looking in on them this morning given that so many had internally pipped last night. Argh! It's a bloody nightmare, and as luck would have it, it turns out that time has all but ground to a halt in this house

I knew that anything from 10 minutes to 36 hrs can be normal for hatching but I guess I expected the pip to start of zip to be a little shorter than it's proving to be. Out of 12 eggs, I now have 7 pips

I'm charging my camera batteries and downloading all the existing photos off the memory card in preparation for lots of hatching photos. Fingers crossed I get to take some! I guess I'm more anxious than I would be (I can tell myself that, right?

), because they are early. If they do take 24hrs to hatch they'll only be a day early so I suppose that's not as early as I was worrying about!

Thanks for the advice. I'm calmer now, having read it (until I next check on the eggs to discover no progress again lol).

Anyway, I'm not sure if you can make it out but here's one of my pips:

 

[nurseshelly]

Quote:
For me, there was a long period between pipping and zipping, but once zipping started, it went fast

 

[Ridgerunner]

Don't worry too much about them being early. I've had some pipping when I went into lockdown my first hatch because my incubator was running too warm. I still got over 70% hatch that time, though they were all early. Sounds like you may be going to do better than 70%. Sure hope so!

 

[Jocasta]

Still no change. The ones that have pipped are all still rocking sporadically and there are a couple that haven't pipped that I've seen rocking. I've noticed with most of the pips that the membrane still appears to be in tact - is that normal?

 

[JScatt69]

I had chick that pipped about 32-35 hours ago. This morning I figured it was dead and took it out of the bator before it got stinky, I opened the egg up to see what went wrong and the chick was very much alive, I put back in the bator and it seems to be doing fine!
One thing I have learned about incubating eggs is it takes a ton of patience, and the more you stare into that little window the longer it takes!!!

 

[SadieSue]

This is a helpful thread as I just went into lockdown yesterday and am already feeling anxious. This is my first time. So Day 19 and I'm trying not to go look at those eggs every 10 minutes, as they aren't doing anything different than they were 10 minutes earlier!