Cold hard truth is you know there's something wrong, it's obviously not ready or not going to hatch on its own and yet YOU are still trying to hatch it. What you are doing is propagating a deficiency. Whatever has caused this is going to happen in the next generation if you breed this chicken. It's hard to say and harder to accept but you really should let this chic die and start over. I never never never assist chics in hatching. If they are not strong and healthy enough to get out of the shell then they are not strong enough to survive outside the shell.
Quote:
X2 you should have never bothered the egg. I read countmess amount of stories about how someone helped a chick out and now it's suffering and they had to cull it. Please don't do this again.
many many people have done it. You are not alone. Most often, when a chick doesn't hatch, it has something wrong with it. Most often I find leg deformities when there are temperature problems. Your incubator is probably too cool if it is three days late. Get a new thermometer to keep temps with next time. I predict this chick will not be viable (able to live a normal life) when it comes out of the egg. Sorry for your pain in the learning curve. It is very difficult to know what to do. Instead of trying to save a non-viable chick, put your efforts to making sure your incubator is right for the next incubation. Good luck on any future hatches.
Quote:
I have the chick bator right now, it's a terrible incubator! I'm sure it caused all 3 of my eggs to die! I'm planning on buying a decent incubator and not a chick killing machine! At least I have learned from this experience...
yes, we have all learned the lesson the hard way. I opened an egg because the chick was still alive and found the reason it didn't hatch itself was because it's skull was open and half the brains were on the outside
. I had to have dh cull the poor thing....would have been better to just leave it alone
Quote:
Don't be sorry. We do what we feel is the right thing at the time with the information we have. Let's move forward and address the current situation. If it lives, that's fine and if not, you did the best you could.