Need Advice - Eggs Stopped Moving

[rachelj]

I am brand new at this and my neighbors chickens layed four eggs in my garage. The same day I found them and my husband had an incubator in which he used to hatch quail. We put the eggs in the incubator, kept them at 99.5 degrees but he forgot about adding the water in the moisture ring (I thought he was the expert at this). They are due to hatch tomorrow and we added water to the incubator two days ago. I don't know if this is too little, too late. We had a lot of movement from two of the eggs yesterday, but I haven't heard any pecking. I watched pretty closely today and one of them that had a lot of movement yesterday, hasn't moved much today. Is there something wrong? Should I continue to wait? Should I try to help by opening the egg? I have just found your forum this evening and plan to read as much as possible, but I am now so freaked out that the babies could possibly be dying. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much!

 

[tracyrene]

I would wait it out. I have learned that a wiggling egg is the chick getting in position to hatch. I had wiggling eggs for 5 days before the hatch! Some days they were more wiggly than others!

 

[Kittymomma]

Bumping the humidity around 3 days before the hatch date is perfect. Like tracyrene said, wait it out. I've had eggs that wiggled like crazy and some I never saw move hatch. Sometimes a chick will pip and then do nothing for 24 hours or more and other times they pip, zip, and hatch all within 1/2 an hour.....It's really best to just leave things alone and let nature do her thing. Happy hatching!

Don't try to help. Why it's true that sometimes (rarely) a chick might need help it's far more likely that you'll kill it trying to help it when if you just sit on your hands the chick will eventually manage to hatch on its own. They are still absorbing the last of the yolk and the blood vessels that run around the egg and attach to the chick are still drying out when the chick starts hatching. If you start trying to open the shell before they yolk absorbs and the vessels dry up it will cause the chick to bleed to death or for its navel not to close properly which can result in the intestines hanging out and the chick dying.

 

[Kittymomma]

How's the hatch going?