Internal pip over 24 hours ago, still no external pip

[PrairieChickens]

I have a chick that pipped internally and can be heard cheeping through the shell yesterday morning. It's now 2 in the afternoon the next day and it still hasn't pipped. Should I help it out or are we still within the realm of reason?

 

[lazy gardener]

Is it still chirping as strongly as it was before? Can you candle it to see where the beak is in relation to the air cell? If you do candle, be sure to keep the air cell up. You could chip a small hole at the top of the air cell to let some air in. Read Sally Sunshine's thread on assisted hatch. You might even Pm her.

 

[pogmobum]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/step-by-step-guide-to-assisted-hatching
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/hatching-eggs-101

 

[PrairieChickens]

Is it still chirping as strongly as it was before? Can you candle it to see where the beak is in relation to the air cell? If you do candle, be sure to keep the air cell up. You could chip a small hole at the top of the air cell to let some air in. Read Sally Sunshine's thread on assisted hatch. You might even Pm her.

Chirping as strongly? no. In fact, though I could still feel her moving in the shell, I could barely hear her cheeping at all. Can I candle it and see where the beak is? Yes. I did read the assisted hatch thread--I had to look it up with my first hatch when a chick pipped externally but didn't zip, and then later when a chick was positioned wrong and needed help. It was very helpful then and now.

I just chipped a hole for the chick and can see her beak now. She seems to be more active now, so I'll wait and see if she's able to zip on her own.

 

[PrairieChickens]

Thank you both for your replies, btw.

 

[pogmobum]

Good luck hope it goes well

 

[PrairieChickens]

Alright, an update on the chick. After I helped it pip, it kept moving so that its beak wasn't near the pip anymore, so I tried to chip away around the "zip" line like I've done before with other assisted hatches and a HUGE chunk of shell popped off. The shell was just so hard I couldn't chip away little pieces. I kind of panicked a little and stopped there, put the chick back in the incubator and waited a few hours. When I came back, the chick had moved again, and now it's foot was sticking out of the hole I'd made.

I went back and forth on whether or not I should help it further, worried I'd kill the poor thing, but finally decided to at least check the membrane and see if it was even close to being ready to hatch. I wet it down like I saw in the instructions, and it looked like the blood had been absorbed, so slowly, and with great anxiety, I began picking off pieces of shell. Just like before, the way I wanted to pick off the shell and the way it came off ended up being two entirely different things, and the whole while the chick was struggling in the shell and cheeping LOUDLY in protest. Quite certain I had just killed the poor thing, I picked off the last bit of shell holding it in, and it fell out into my hands.

Yolk fully absorbed, no blood... in fact, the poor thing had pooped at least once while still stuck in the shell! I'm guessing it was about two bowel movements late on its hatch.

I took a picture but my SD reader has inexplicably quit working, so it will have to wait.

 

[cluckerkeeper]

 

[PrairieChickens]

Here it is, the newest resident of Chicken Town!

 

[cluckerkeeper]