Should I help?

[chickfused]

It's been this way for about 5-6 hours. That great hole and crack happened in one whack, and then he's never moved again except to sit there breathing and occasionally cheeping. I'm worried with such a huge hole, that he's dried himself out.

Also - does the beak look odd to anyone else?

 

[BrittnyChicks]

It's been this way for about 5-6 hours. That great hole and crack happened in one whack, and then he's never moved again except to sit there breathing and occasionally cheeping. I'm worried with such a huge hole, that he's dried himself out.

Also - does the beak look odd to anyone else?

I'm not an expert to these things, but if its only been 5-6 hours, it might be a bit early to try and help him out. I would usually wait 18-24 hours, unless other issues like shrink-wrap of the chick is stop moving etc.

The breathing might be chewing or yawning, which means that its still absorbing the yolk, but I could be wrong.

Hes so precious. take good care of him, Good luck!

 

[chickfused]

Well, maybe I will try to help him just before I go to bed tonight if he's not managed. I'll be gone from 4AM tomorrow until 4PM, and that will be too long if he's in trouble.

 

[HollowOfWisps]

-Leave it be until it's been at least 24 hours after the first pip. It takes up to 24 hours for a chick to hatch on its own and it has made already great progress. You can end up killing the chick if you step in too early and don't know what you're doing.

-It is still absorbing the yolk (it is chewing and yawning).

-The beak looks fine I think what might make it seem weird is that you are seeing it's egg tooth that will eventually fall off, but is what gives the chick the ability to pip the egg.

 

[Purelychicks]

Chewing motions typically mean they are absorbing yolk still. this is just a large external pip essentially, they will do this and then sleep that night to regain strength. It will likely hatch tomorrow! Good luck. I have a lot of experience helping chicks in the incubation process.

 

[BarnyardChaos]

Everything I see in the video is absolutely normal and healthy, including the beak. The chewing movements with the beak mean it's still absorbing yolk and is NOT READY to hatch. Please don't assist until it's been 24 hours after the pip - so that would be, what, noonish tomorrow? Chicks will pip that hole, then rest quietly on and off for a very, very long time before they start the hatch. I know, when you're anxiously waiting for it to hatch, that can seem like an eternity. Very likely, when you wake before 4 am, you'll have a lively chick bouncing around and ready to move to the brooder.

It's hard to say what to do, if you wake in the morning and there's no progress. If it's going to have problems, 4pm tomorrow might be too late. But then 4am might be too early to assist if it's still chewing and blood veins are visible in the membrane. I will suggest that you DO NOT pick off any part of the shell or "help" it to hatch until you've read this article, and then read it again:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/guide-to-assisted-hatching-for-all-poultry.72886/

 

[chickfused]

Thank you. I'm intimately familiar with that article. I had to help a stuck chick once that was just too big for it's egg. That one too did the same thing, huge hole, and it got itself too dry. The fact that I'm going to be gone tomorrow is the concern with this one. Normally, I'd leave it overnight.

Maybe I can get up at 2AM or something to check on the wee thing. It's an incredibly rare breed (Russian Pavlovskaya) and I'd hate to lose it this far into it.

 

[BarnyardChaos]

Thank you. I'm intimately familiar with that article. I had to help a stuck chick once that was just too big for it's egg. That one too did the same thing, huge hole, and it got itself too dry. The fact that I'm going to be gone tomorrow is the concern with this one. Normally, I'd leave it overnight.

Maybe I can get up at 2AM or something to check on the wee thing. It's an incredibly rare breed (Russian Pavlovskaya) and I'd hate to lose it this far into it.

If you can, I think it might be a good idea to assist after 2am if there's no progress. It will have been 14 hours at that point. I hope I'm not wrong. With my last batch (26) I logged the time on each egg from pip to hatch. Most were out of the shell within 8-9 hours, a few more by 12-14 hours and two at 18 hours. I had to assist the last one at 19 hours (it had problems I could see).

 

[chickfused]

I ended up helping a little bit earlier than anticipated. I could tell by looking that he was shrinkwrapping, so I opened up the hole a bit and Neosporined the papery dry bit. Good thing too, it's head was fully shrink wrapped and 1/3rd of it's body. It still had some blood vessels, so I put it back in the incubator and waited. It started to dry again, so I Neosporined it good a 2nd time and within 20 minutes it zipped and hatched successfully. I've never seen zipping so clearly before, it was really neat!

Edit: Watching it zip helped me understand why shrinkwrapping kills them and why this one couldn't make it's hole bigger. They turn, and then fling their heads backwards from the neck to make the egg tooth connect with the shell to break it. When you can't fling your head back, or turn, well, no breaking of the shell happens.