Intervention and Ignorance. What do i do know.

[KansasKid]

of course this is the first time i have tried hatching eggs and of course i believe i have already cause problems for myself and a poor chick. Today at about 3:30 i had an egg start chirping and rolling around. then at 8:40 it was doing the same more vigorously. Then after a while it quit. Well i got all worried for some reason and jumped the gun (no external pip yet) and tapped a little hole in the big end to look and see. I could see the membrane but no pip through the membrane yet. Well again stupid me the membrane started to dry out so i went ahead and removed almost all the shell on the big end (just to the edge of were the air sac stopped) and i moistened the membrane (while doing so i could see the chick's eye, blinking at me) I can see the chick in what i'm assuming is the normal position with a good sum of un-absorbed yolk. I have since put a moistened paper towel over the exposed membrane. (chick is still alive) My question is have i totally screwed up, or what do i do from here?

 

[jbowen9]

Keep it a little moist and let it hatch and on the rest of them put your hands on a chair and then sit on them so that way you won't try it again.

 

[Katy]

You sit on your hands or go to bed and let mother nature take over. It can take over 24 hours for a chick to completely hatch from when it first pips. Sounds like your chick had at least that much time if not more since it hadn't even pipped yet. At this point in time you just need to leave your incubator closed and leave the eggs alone.