I need EMERGENCY advice.

[silkiebeginer]

My eggs are not due to hatch until Friday. So last night was my last night of turning them. Well I had the humidity between 50 and 55% and opened the bator once yesterday morning, once around 6 pm to turn the eggs. Then at about 11 pm last night i was turning them for the last time. I felt moving and heard noise inside a couple of the eggs and I found that one had been pecked. 1 little peck whole. So now I am wondering if i should go ahead and finish hatching that egg now? I tried to hurry and get humidity up to 70. But I had to have the incubator open for about 5 min. to get it filled up with water. That was after having it open for about 2 min turning the eggs. So I am afraid that the chick is going to stick and die. I saw the egg moving last night thru the window. But its now been about 7 hours since I noticed the pecked spot. So should i help it even though it is 2 days early and give it at least a chance? If I should open the egg, how do i go about doing that? Thanks for any advice ASAP. Thank you from a first timer.

Jennifer

 

[4-H chicken mom]

Good job getting the humidity higher, but it should have been that high from the start. It should always be around 70-80%, try to make it even higher now that the egg is hatching. I dont think its anything to worry about that your egg is hatching two days early, it still had plenty of time to develope. Before you did anything else you should candle the egg and see if the chick has pecked through the air pocket. If so, from the first pip in the egg the chick HAS to be out within 24 hours. Helping chicks hatch is normally bad, because after the first pip, they start drawing in the yolk from the egg and thats when the chick actually seals in its innerds (sorry for no better way to say that). In other words you could kill the bird if its not ready to come out. Seeing that its been 7 hours, if there has been no progress you could VERY GENTLY peel back a section of the egg to reveal the chicks head. Do not remove too much. If you notice the shell is hard, fill a syringe with water and use that to soften up the egg, making sure that you dont drown the chick. Its normal to see a little blood when you do this, its from the veins in the egg. See if that helps any and give the chick some time to work on the egg itself after that.

You might also want to candle your other eggs since the humidity was so low, they could also be ready to hatch but the shell is too hard to break through. If the chick has broken through the air pocket, you can make the first pip in the egg for them, you might even have to get them out completely. I had this problem my first time hatching, the humidity wasnt high enough and the eggs were too hard. I had to hatch 3 birds completely. The other three were dead by the time i got to them. The birds that did get out are doing beautifully.

 

[4-H chicken mom]

Forgot to tell you how to go about helping the chicks!!! Just use a pair of tweezers to pull back the egg, you will probably have to break through the membrane too, if thats too hard, use the syringe with water to soften.