Quail Chick Died after Pipping

[HRoseY]

Hi, I assisted my quail chick after it had been pipped for over 24 hours maybe more. Unfortunately the chick had died. I'm confused though if it had an unabsorbed yolk or if his intestines are on the outside. Help is appreciated. 10 chicks have successfully hatched and have 11 more eggs but there hasn't been any progress in 36 hours but the other ones did hatch at 16 days so praying more hatch.

 

[Debbie292d]

It does look like its intestines are on the outside. Unsure why that would happen, nor why it would pip if it was that far out yet from being ready.

Do you have a secondary thermometer/hygrometer to check your incubator temperature? It's not unusual to have a couple early birds, but when you have 10 of them hatching two days early, I'd suspect your incubator was running a bit warmer than 99.5.

 

[HRoseY]

It does look like its intestines are on the outside. Unsure why that would happen, nor why it would pip if it was that far out yet from being ready.

Do you have a secondary thermometer/hygrometer to check your incubator temperature? It's not unusual to have a couple early birds, but when you have 10 of them hatching two days early, I'd suspect your incubator was running a bit warmer than 99.5.

Thanks for your help! It's a homemade incubator which I'm honestly really regretting not testing it more extensively. This is my first time using it or hatching anything at all. We have three thermometers and found out that one of them was running a degree colder than the other two. Our thermostat controller varied a lot based on where it was. I also ended up having to put them on top of the eggs because we didn't have space so wondering if we ran it accidentally hotter than I thought. I also tested the water bottle heat sinks with my meat thermometer that I could test with the ice water test and they ran between 99 and 100 degrees depending on which I tested so I thought the temp was ok. We ended up with a few cold spots that it took me a few days to fix so I thought they would be late not early.

Honestly I'm really worried that the rest of the eggs died in shell. Candled and before lockdown and all had been developing nicely except for 8 that were removed with no development. I think when I added some water containers it messed up the air flow and I'm worried they suffocated in the egg. I thought I had enough vent holes but probably should of had more because of how tightly they ended up packed. I'm feeling a bit heartbroken about the whole thing I thought it would be fun to build my own incubator but It's been much harder to get right than I thought it would be. I couldn't resist putting a safety hole in another one and found it dead in shell without pipping or absorbing the egg yolk. I'm not going to mess with them anymore. But wondering when I should give up and turn off the incubator.

 

[Susan Skylark]

Your chick had an umbilical hernia, it is a birth defect that happens in most species. 1% deformed or mutant chicks in unstressed eggs is common, 10% in shipped, old, or heat or cold stressed eggs is common. Other deformities include but isn’t limited to hydrocephalus, splay legs, scissor bill, failure to mature (sparse down, look like a much earlier embryo on hatch day), and others, many die at hatch, with or without pipping.