Hi
Thanks so much for your post.
Could you please email me the instructions on helping with the membrane.
I have had terrible success with my incubator have had so many chicks die either not hatch or during hatching its so devastating and expensive!
Am going to try one last time this week so any help would be much appreciated, thanks
Hi, I am the original poster of this thread (Id change).
I will give you some instructions on how to accomplish this, but I'd like to ask a few questions.
First, when you say you are going to try again this week, does that mean you have some chicks close to hatching, or are you going to set some new eggs and start incubating a batch?
The reason I ask is that, through personal experience, I have discovered that incubating in the fall/winter is not as successful as incubating in spring and summer. It CAN be done, but the chicks tend to need MUCH more help than the other seasons. So, I would recommend if you have not already incubated a batch, that you will get better success in the spring. BUT, if you have set them, then I will give you my best advice to try and save them if they can't get out of their shells alone.
Make SURE of your due date for the chicks. Larger breeds will almost always pip on schedule, and bantam breeds tend to pip on day 18 or 19 (I have had this happen every time).
After pipping, your chick "should" start making progress on zipping within 12 to 24 hours. And yes, 24 hours is excruciating to wait. (In fall, they tend to take longer to show signs of zipping). Your intervention at this pipping stage is to keep an eye on the timing of the zipping (who zips first etc), and then you will know which egg will need help first according to the time it pipped. Be VERY careful about knowing or writing down WHICH one and WHEN they pipped!
You want to keep the incubator as moist as possible, and you want to keep from opening it repeatedly, but REALISTICALLY you need to occasionally open it to check on the well being/peeping of the chicks and maybe quickly arrange them in pipping order from left to right.
This is not an exact science, so you will need to use your "gut instinct" for the most part. Listen for peeping and feel for movement. Keep a mental record of what chicks are loud ones and which are quiet to start with as some are simply more active than others to start. This will give you an idea of what chicks may need help based on lessening of sound and movement.
Alright, now lets say you have determined that it has been past 24 hours or so, and/or you have noticed the chick is getting quieter or you can see through the pip opening that the chick is struggling...this is most likely the time to help.
Follow my detailed instructions that I posted in this thread for assisting and helping 'zip' your chick. NOTE: DULL tweezers work best for pinching shell and lifting it away, BUT if the chick only pipped a CRACK into the outer shell, you can use sharper MORE POINTED TWEEZERS to carefully lift the shell to make a better starting point. And IF your chick pipped a piece of the shell off but the white membrane does not have a hole in it, you can CAREFULLY open a small hole at the pip site. I use my very pointy tweezers to very carefully pinch a small piece of the outer membrane and create a hole-BUT I ONLY MAKE A HOLE IF the chick had pipped at least a FEW HOURS AGO....Do it too soon, and you MAY cause bleeding to happen.
So after you have zipped the shell carefully as much as you can, you will need to assess the chick and decide if the chick needs to get out of the inner membrane immediately or can be placed in a wet cloth and put back to wait and see if the chick can make progress on its own. NOTE: There are 3 layers-the SHELL, the PAPERY WHITE MEMBRANE, and the INNER GOOEY RUBBERY MEMBRANE. You will be able to see after removing some of the shell (zipping) if the chick is a large one and packed in the shell tight. If it is packed in tight, it will be next to impossible to rotate itself around to zip its way out.
NOTE: If a chick does not or can not rotate to zip itself out, it has not had a chance to 'sever its ties' so to speak with the blood vessels in the rubbery membrane. Working on a chick that was not able to rotate and sever the blood vessels itself, is tricky! There will be a fine balance of trying to move the rubbery membrane away from the chicks head and shoulders and trying to keep it from losing too much blood during the process. BUT IT CAN BE DONE. It is SCARY and nerve racking! That is why it is so important to keep track of the time from pip to when you intervene. Time will help allow some of the blood vessels to dry up after the chick has pipped. It won't be as good as if the chick is able to zip, but, time can help lessen the bleeding. It's a fine balance of waiting for either the vessels to dry, or keeping the membrane moist so it can get out itself, versus going ahead and removing the membrane because you think the chick will perish if you don't.
I have had several experiences after zipping the shell- I have to decide to continue to help remove from the membrane, OR decide to keep the membrane moist and try to let the chick remove itself from the membranes (the papery white one is left on for the process of letting the chick get out on its own). I have had some great results moistening and waiting on the chick to exit, and I have also lost a few with waiting. I have had success the few times I have gone ahead and removed the paper and rubbery membranes (albeit with some blood loss) and those chicks survived well with no after affects.
If you feel the chick is struggling to breathe and movement/noise is lessening after helping zip the shell and moistening the outer membrane, that is most likely when you need to get it out of that rubbery membrane.
What you do is, SLOWLY, working from the original pip site, try to ROLL, STRETCH, or GENTLY GENTLY SLIDE the rubbery membrane DOWN away from the chicks breathing site (usually their beak will be close to their original pip). This action will typically reveal some bleeding as the vessels are being stretched. You can apply either flour, or similar blood clotting agent to the bleed (keep away from beak/nostrils!), and re wrap your chick in moist cloth and rest it in the incubator for a little. That gives the vessel TIME to dry on its own. Then after some rest- 1/2 hour to an hour at a time, you continue the process until you have the chicks head and shoulders free so it can expand and contract easily to breathe.
Your goal is to get the 'shrink wrap' effect removed and allow the chick to breathe easier, but keep it in the lower half of membrane and shell in order for the rest of the vessels and the umbilical etc to close up. Sometimes you will HAVE to remove the majority or the rubbery membrane FAST and in a hurry to save a chick. If you get to that point, it will be a matter of thinking your choice at that point is that if you leave the chick in the rubbery membrane it might die, and that by helping, it might also die. I have been to the point of tears knowing a chick was giving up and I could see the will to live leaving its body, and my teen son told me that it was surely going to die in the membrane, so why not try? He was right. It was a bit messy (somewhat bloody), but the chicks are well and alive today. You WILL see blood. You WILL get nervous. But when you get to that life or death point (stuck in the membrane and struggling), and you know you might lose the chick either way, THAT is the point when you should at least TRY, and know that you actively made an effort. Believe me, watching them struggle to move and breathe stuck in their membrane until they die is heart wrenching and guilt inducing.
If you have any questions, or you feel I left something out, please PM me. I am not online all day, but I will do my best to answer questions as promptly as I get them.
Thanks,
rooridgefarm (formerly FOWLWEATHERFRIENDS)
