Silkie thread!

I have a question on black silkie chicks,the one black chick i have left has yellow fuzz on the wing tips and on its feet will thatturn white or black when its older?
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These 2 turned black as they got older.
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That's mum.
They are 4 months old now and solid black.
 
I have 6 eggs in the incubator(all due different dates) and they are all from my backyard flock,a silkie egg was due yesterday and still hasn't started pipping out. And I candled it from day 3 and it has been growing and growing and it's all black inside you can't see anything now except the little air pocket at the bottom. And like I said I candled it all the way through and seen it get bigger but I'm wandering if I should hurry and crack/peel the egg open to help it out????? I need help A.S.A.P. thanks in advance!!!
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I'm really sorry that the silkie egg didn't make it! When an egg is overdue I do a few things before deciding it is dead and opening to find out why. I candle to see if there is any movement. I tap gently and then listen to it (actually, I do that first) so it doesn't have to experience the bright light from candling if it doesn't have to. Finally, I carefully set it into warm water. I wait for everthing to get calm again, then watch for movement in the water. If it wiggles, it is still alive.

I try to only open my incubator enough to turn, But only candle twice. I am afraid that the extra handling might mess with the growing chicks. My air pockets are always kept pointing up, until I move them to a hatcher - then they are on their sides - trying to let them set in their natural positition since the aircells are always a bit tilted.

Mostly though, the thing I do different from you is keep eggs for a few days before incubating as they are layed so that they all might hatch about the same time. I find that it is easier on me after they hatch. It provides company with other chicks for the newborns, and it allows me to keep my humidity at the levels I like for each stage.

I have never helped a chick before it has pipped - but I have after it has pipped (externally) but I know that I messed with my humidity (by opening for someone else) and that that may have created excessive drying of the membrane (through my own fault). At that point, I help mostly by keeping the membrane moist with qutips and try to unstick if from the chick.... I try to make the chick do as much as the 'hatching' as possible as the physical challenge is necessary for correct yolk absorbtion. If it not my fault that the chick is having trouble hatching - SOMETIMES it is because there is something wrong with the chick. I've had to put a few chicks down because I helped them hatch and they were deformed and not equipped for a good life. :(

Also, and someone else also felt lost in this thread, the threads sometimes get lost in all of the posts here - or the folks looking at the time do not have enough experience to answer, then three hours later - someone with experience comes on - but so many posts have happened that they do not see your question. For instance - it has been a few days since I've been caught up on this thread..... REPOST! If it is a time critical thing... and you get no answers.... bump your question up so it easily seen ... check to see if there are experienced people viewing the thread ... and feel free to post on other threads - like a hatching thread.

I do not consider myself that experienced, have only been doing this for less than a year, and have only just now gotten a good hatch - so I've had many many questions and issues .... but I wanted to give you some input, as it seems as though your post in the beginning got lost, and I get the anxiety that goes with the non hatching of a favorite egg. Hatching sucks sometimes.


Anyway, I wish you the best of luck with the rest of your eggs!!!!!
 
It's been my experience that most of ones I help out of the shell die anyway. I recently found a chick hatched that had not absorbed the yolk sack. I didn't expect it to survive, but I let the yolk dry up and cut it off. Fed the little one ' save a chick ' with a syringe and scrambled egg. It's about 4 weeks old now and has beaten the odds. Problem is it thinks it s a duck, cause it just so happened that we had an orphan duck at the same time.
Here's the little bugger with his brood.
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