Is my chick stuck in the egg?

[Audenis]

Hello, I am new to this whole egg hatching thing, and this is my 2nd time hatching chicks. So what happened is, there was a big temp spike in the incubator one day and there was an early hatch (pipped at day 18, hatched 19), it's day 21 now and almost all the eggs already hatched (12 out of 45 remain unhached, half of them are pipped but not yet zipping). One of them has "pipped" in a big way, but nearly 24 hours have gone by and there hasn't been much progress. Should I assist it in hatching or just leave it be? https://imgur.com/a/s8OM3jV

 

[Duck_life]

@Eggcessive

 

[cmom]

I would proceed cautiously. It could be stuck. If you see any blood stop immediately. Moisten the membrane. I use a moistened Q-tip. Dip it in water and dampen around the pip. and slowly pick off the shell. Good luck.

 

[Kiki]

Welcome to BYC.

Do you have a salt tested humidity gauge in your bator?

I can't see the link you attached, not sure if that is a video or the same picture as in the post.
I think this chick might be stuck.
It looks pretty gooey inside the egg or is it just appearing that way in the photo?

 

[Audenis]

Not sure what you mean by "salt tested", but I do have a hydrometer in my bator.

Link is the same as the pic, first time posting here so I didn't know if it would show it here, put that there just in case. Weird that it doesn't show.

Well, it's kind of gooey, it has a texture of dry'ish milk skin. I might just try to get that thing out thought it looks bad.

 

[Kiki]

Not sure what you mean by "salt tested", but I do have a hydrometer in my bator.

Link is the same as the pic, first time posting here so I didn't know if it would show it here, put that there just in case. Weird that it doesn't show.

Well, it's kind of gooey, it has a texture of dry'ish milk skin. I might just try to get that thing out thought it looks bad.

Salt test means basically that you calibrated it so you know if it is reading correctly.

I'll come back in a few minutes with a link on how to do the simple test.

I'm wondering if your gauge is off by a lot...which could be one of the reasons you are having trouble.

For now...I think you should go ahead and slowly remove shell over the air cell then put some coconut oil on the membrane itself, which will help you to see better... to get a better look.

 

[Audenis]

Never knew that, I've just used it in factory setting, never really tried to test it with anything since I don't have a spare hydrometer around, just assumed it worked.

Alright, sadly after trying to remove some shell it started bleeding a little, I've stopped there. The skin thing surrounding the chick looks dry'ish but with the bleeding I'd assume it hasn't fully developed yet. There is nothing I can really do at this point but wait and see, the chick Is stuck with a lot of issues, chances of its survival are slim, if I intervene I'd probably die anyways so yeah...

Thanks for your help anyway, the other chicks seem to have hatched fine and with no visible health issues or deformities. One more might be stuck the same way but it's a small and recent pip, so I'll wait and see.

One thing I want to ask since you're here: my humidity got reallyyy high since they started hatching (all round it was fine) , was once at 96% now at 80%, how do I get it down? I'm using a Styrofoam still air incubator with water reservoirs beneath the floor, and I can't really drain them because there are many newly hatched wet chicks running around, if I attempt to open the bator to drain it they might freeze, and pipped eggs might get stuck like this one. I could open the top windows even for a few seconds but that would probably do more harm than good. Long read, I know, sorry, but so many things are going on at the same time and since I'm new I've got to learn everything

 

[Kiki]

I know what I'm about to say sounds strange but you cannot trust the installed thermometer or humidity gauge that comes with an incubator.

You really should purchase separate ones and calibrate them both.

I open my bator often during hatch, many do not agree with doing so... At this point I wouldn't worry about the humidity. It's normal for the humidity to go up while the chicks are hatching.

 

[Kiki]

If your chicks are running around in the bedroom there's no reason why you can't move them to a warm brooder.

 

[Kiki]

Calibrating instructions:
https://www.famous-smoke.com/cigaradvisor/how-do-you-calibrate-a-hygrometer
and
Testing/calibrating incubator thermometers and ... - BackYard Chickenshttps://www.backyardchickens.com › Articles › Member Pages