Is my chick drowning?

[SireniaSolaris]

Hello. So it is the end of day 19/start of day 20 and I was surprised to have my first egg pip early! Only it pipped at the wrong end

I heard a peep before it broke away a piece of the shell, but I don't see its beak exposed and I don't hear anything else. I'm worried about it drowning. Should I try to peel away just enough to expose the beak or does a hole in the shell mean it has access to air?

Here is a picture. It's the left side, second egg from the top. There is a small hole in the wrong end (toward the right side).

Any advice is very much appreciated.

 

[SireniaSolaris]

Oh and the hole is only a hole in the shell. The membrane is still intact. Which is why I'm wondering if I should open a hole? I see no blood vessels in the exposed membrane

 

[Melissa F]

I'm a newbie with only one hatch so far, but I had an egg do that, too. A bit of the shell came off, but the membrane was still intact. Mine never progressed any further than that. I'll be anxious to see what others say about what to do- I was unsure if I should help, too. Has anything happened since you posted this?

 

[SireniaSolaris]

Yes. Lots! Lol.

So I was told on my other thread to just watch my chick carefully because sometimes you had to help, and sometimes the chick could do it on its own. Today is day 21 and out of 17 viable eggs that were developing, so far 6 have hatched and 6 more have pipped.

The one in question was actually the first to pip. I gave it 24 hours as I did continue to see movement from time to time (the beak was trying to break the membrane unsuccessfully). At 28 hours, I took the egg out and placed it on a moist, warm cloth, and made sure to have a wet cotton swab to keep the membrane moist as well (it turns white if it is drying up. You want to keep it clearish. I kept him out for no more than 10 minutes (probably closer to 5) because I didn't want him to get cold. I used flat edge tweezers (sanitize it first) to start picking away the shell. I picked away only enough so that it might be able to unzip then I put him back to let him finish. He did not.

Two hours later I took him out again to remove over half of the shell so that he would only need to break free of the membrane to hatch, and I put him back.

Over the next couple of hours I saw him pushing against the membrane but he still couldn't get out. He did make a tiny tear in the membrane by his beak though.

This part I only assisted because there were no further blood vessels showing. Even so I worked VERY SLOWLY AND CAREFULLY just in case. Using the tweezers I peeled bits of the outer membrane away. The inner membrane (very thin and completely clear) was getting a bit sticky at this point (likely due to too much dry air exposure?) So since that was also free of any blood vessels I gently peeled that away too, uncovering a leg/thigh and a good deal of his body. He remained curled up as if he was stuck in the egg but I freed him to where he would simply need to stretch out to finish hatching.

So I put him back in the incubator and about an hour later he finished breaking free of the remainder of the egg. He is now in the brooder box with the other two that hatched last night and were semi dry but just needed to fluff out. His name is McNugget