Should I intervene?

[Millieshens]

I was wondering if anyone could advise if I need to help this chick along? The pip is in the middle of the egg as you can see in the photo and the membrane is starting to show a tiny stream of brown. Chick is still alive and occasionally cheeping and I spotted it trying to push the membrane but it just bounces back. A hairline crack (I couldn’t call it a pip?) first appeared over 24 hours ago but the proper pip only broke through 6 hours ago. Should I make help to make a bigger hole in the membrane for the chick to breathe? Only other egg left hasn’t pipped yet so opening incubator wouldn’t affect it too much I presume.
Any help on this specific situation would be much appreciated. Many thanks in advance!

 

[JaeG]

Even a tiny crack in the egg means the chick is getting oxygen. If the membrane is starting to look brown you can dab a bit of coconut oil (ideally, but any cooking oil will do the trick) on the membrane to keep it supple. But if you are feeling like it has been too long (and if it has been more than 24 hours since the external pip it is getting to the point where I would be concerned, although occasionally some chicks do need 36 hours), make sure you read through this article so that you know what you are doing when you do help:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/guide-to-assisted-hatching-for-all-poultry.72886/

Can you see the chicks beak easily? If it is still yawning and 'smacking its lips' then it is still absorbing the yolk and blood from the veins in the membrane and is not quite ready to hatch yet.

Let me know how you get on.

 

[Millieshens]

Thank you so much JaeG. I decided to intervene only minimally by removing small amounts of shell around the pip so that the beak was more free and to moisten and slightly release the toughened membrane around the beak. There were no blood vessels etc so looked quite “ready”. Happy to declare that 4 hours later the chick then managed to successfully finish hatching itself!

 

[JaeG]

Awesome news! Thanks for the update.