Good morning,
this has become a very big hatch a long....just shows how wonderful hatching chicks is...not that i thought that at 2 am this morning!
great news is 2 wobbly but healthy chick, no deformities from the air cell drama. the chick with the good air cell hatched almost unassisted, I did make a small opening in the end to keep an eye on it because the chick was internally pipped and cheeping but not externally after 12 hours. was all good still had a lot of fat vessels, but being able to watch those reduce and see it breathing was reassuring. I have plastic vials of normal saline for irrigating eyes, just use drops of that on the membrane every 1-2 hours to keep them moist and have humidity up at 80+ when there is an open egg ( I dont have small air cell problems thou). the first chick who had the bad air cell, had been pipped internally, i thought for 14 hours I could hear faint movement and it wasn't cheeping ( neither rocked but they were upright in a carton). candling it looked different, shape wise, still shadows in the air cell.so I opened a small hole, the membrane was really odd, it was floppy and went down all sides past where I could see. it wasn't attached anywhere, the chick moved and it just moved with it. NO pip. everything said put it back but low down 1 side was a bit darker, removing more shell i found it was damp, then found a tiny beak in a very small hole, bit over half way down the shell and on the side tilted toward the carton. repositioned it and put it back, wetting the large amount of membrane exposed regularly and scared stiff I'd interfered too soon, at least she chirped a bit now, hours later no progress and little movement, removed more shell around the beak and the membrane bleed slightly, back it went. Few hours later from wetting the membrane i could see the vessels were really small. In tears i removed more shell and peeled back the membranes over the shell. Thought I'd gone too far and killed her, but she breathed on. She moved a bit but nothing strong enough to get free, just a wing out in the air, I loosened her head out, she lay like that for 2 hours then kicked out of the shell, but the cord was pink and moist pulling on her navel. Snipped it and used betadine soaked qtip to push her navel in a bit, held her like that against my stomach for 20 mins. Put her in the incubator, and sobbed myself to sleep, 4 hours later, chirps woke me, chick 2 was zipping, chick 1 was stretched out looking dead, but as soon as the lights and fan of the incubator came on she would startle and sit up!! she looked exhausted. Chick 2 came out pretty quick. They then slept on my stomach with a towel rolled to keep them there, under the blankets. they called until I put my hand over them, then they slept. (the ecoglow 20 just didnt seem warm enough to me hence taking them to bed.)
6 hours later they are both sleepy but doing great. I think the chick tried to pip but the membrane was to slack, it turned itself and pipped low and was exhausting itself, may well have died. will research draw down. Or maybe I got it all wrong....but the 2 are here, end of story.
Ruby get some sleep, you might also be in for a long night with those aircells.
if i figure out how to post pics will put some up.
