I took off some Shell before my Quail hatched.

[Sneaky_Faisal]

Please post pictures!

Gimme 20 or so minutes...

 

[CloneFly]

Gimme 20 or so minutes...

No problem. Just be sure to keep the membrane moisturized otherwise the baby will die!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Let's start at the beginning. There are two kinds of "pip". The first is internal pip. That is where the chick pokes a hole in the membrane of the air cell. Up until this point the chick had lived in a liquid world. This is when it learns to breathe air. Eventually, and it can take many hours, the chick repositions itself and pokes a hole through the membrane and the shell so it can breathe outside air. This is called external pip. You saw the photo above. Eventually the chick will cut a line through that membrane and the shell all around the egg ad push it apart so it can pop out. This is called "zip". Again, a good photo above.

While the chick is doing all this it is doing other things like absorbing the yolk and absorbing and drying up the blood vessels that were external to its body so it could absorb nutrition for the inside of the egg. It does something to the liquid gunk that was outside its body so when the down dries it is fluffy instead of gummed up and stuck to its body. This is hard work and it often needs to rest. Some chicks do a lot of this between internal pip and external pip but some wait until after external pip. So some chicks zip fairly soon after external pip but some can take over 24 hours. These late ones can be really frustrating when you are watching and waiting.

You can harm the chick if you help before it is ready. Many of them can still absorb the yolk if they hadn't finished that but there is a chance you could do damage to that process. A larger danger is if it has not absorbed the blood vessels before you remove the shell it can start bleeding and bleed to death. It's hard to know when to help a chick, it could be a slow one so you are more likely to kill it than help it but sometimes they can't do it on their own. I leave them alone unless I'm really sure they are in trouble.

One risk is shrink wrapping them. If they get too dry while hatching that membrane around them can dry out and shrink, locking them tightly in that membrane where they can't move to hatch. That's why you increase the humidity inside the incubator during hatch. Shrink wrap can occur earlier but usually it happens after external pip, especially if you open the incubator and let the moisture out. Shrink wrap does not occur nearly as much as some people fear but it is a major reason people help chicks hatch.

I do not trust the factory presets on any incubator, they can be wrong. I don't trust any instruments like thermometers to read correctly unless they have been calibrated. They can be off by quite a bit. Why is this important? If your average incubating temperature is high, the chicks can hatch a day or two early if they hatch at all. If it is low then hatch can be a day or two late. There are other things that can cause chicks to hatch early or late but incubating temperature is a common one and is what someone was referring to earlier.

I don't know if you helped or hurt those chicks. Maybe this will help you understand what others were talking about above.

 

[CloneFly]

How's the baby doing?