Started performing an eggtopsy on day 25.. the chick is alive!!! HELP!

[blondie34]

After waiting 4 additional days I decided to open it up and see what went wrong...

I cracked the hard outer shell in a few places and chipped off that shell, leaving the inner membrane intact and I saw movement! I wrapped it in a warm damp paper towel, put it in the incubator, and bumped humidity up a bit.. do I need to make a hole in the inner membrane for the chick to breathe? When I candled it before I started it had not internally pipped..

what's next to maximize chances of this little guy making it?!

 

[Mama2B&D&...Chickens]

When I do eggtopsies I try and crack the air sack JUST in case the is any chance so make sure air sac is punctured and there is a way for it to breathe!

Was there any blood? Any cheeping? How big of crack and where exactly is it? When I do the, I try and start out like they would hatch just bc I'm paranoid of this happening :/ Wishing you luck....idk if there is much more to do but hopefully someone with more experience will jump in!

 

[blondie34]

When I do eggtopsies I try and crack the air sack JUST in case the is any chance so make sure air sac is punctured and there is a way for it to breathe!

Was there any blood? Any cheeping? How big of crack and where exactly is it? When I do the, I try and start out like they would hatch just bc I'm paranoid of this happening

Wishing you luck....idk if there is much more to do but hopefully someone with more experience will jump in!

perfect, that's exactly where I cracked it open a bit to see if it'd internally pipped but it hasn't so I poked a tiny hole with a pair of tweezers in the membrane...

it hasn't moved around much and I'm worried there was a reason it didn't hatch on time with the other eggs this is the only one out of the 8 I pulled from my girls that hasn't hatched -- so sad!

 

[Mama2B&D&...Chickens]

You did all you can do then I actually had one like that with my last broody and picked up the egg to discard and heard cheeping :O I had no incubator or anything and so I had to help it myself and just put it under a light with a warm paper towel.. Luckily she made it and I got REally lucky bc it had only just pipped so I was worried about the yolk absorbing and giving it enough time, ect. But now guess who has the incubator fired up and running during even broody hatches now? Yep, this girl! haha! It is sad though bc human nature you want to of course help them all but your right there might be a reason it didn't hatch or it just was on the cooler side of getting turned? so many factors...keep this updated though, hopefully something good will come of this but if it doesn't its not your fault!

 

[blondie34]

You did all you can do then

I actually had one like that with my last broody and picked up the egg to discard and heard cheeping :O I had no incubator or anything and so I had to help it myself and just put it under a light with a warm paper towel.. Luckily she made it and I got REally lucky bc it had only just pipped so I was worried about the yolk absorbing and giving it enough time, ect. But now guess who has the incubator fired up and running during even broody hatches now?

Yep, this girl! haha! It is sad though bc human nature you want to of course help them all but your right there might be a reason it didn't hatch or it just was on the cooler side of getting turned? so many factors...keep this updated though, hopefully something good will come of this but if it doesn't its not your fault!

WOW you are lucky! I helped a chick out once and learned my lesson.. little guy made it for a day and then went to baby chick heaven lol .. I suspect I am having humidity issues with my incubator.. I thinking I should've just kept them under the silkie

... my humidity gage is reading 65 but I suspect it might be off as it is digital and I've had some issues with it in the past..

the other chicks out of this batch that did hatch were extremely wet/soggy and it took forever for them to fluff out.. two of them are really lethargic as well.. I think next time I'm going to try and use less water in my bator..

I'm really intrigued with dry hatching and am entertaining the idea of giving that a shot.. especially since I've been having so many issues that I think may be related to humidity..

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

Did you poke a hoke in the membrane? If not, I'd LEAVE it. If it hasn't pipped thru the membrane, it may not be ready to breathe on its own yet. I've done this beforeI (opened an egg I thought was bad only to find I was wrong). I'd cracked thru the shell and left the membrane intact. I wrapped it in a damp paper towel and popped it in the incubator for the day. When I woke up the next morning, there was a pretty irritated chick screaming its fuzzy head off in the bator.

Sounds like your humidity was too high to me as well. Good luck, I hope it makes it

 

[Mama2B&D&...Chickens]

I will have to let you know how my first dry hatch goes! I have six in the bator right now BUT it's my first time hatching with this incubator anyways and there shipped eggs :/ so I'm just hoping and praying and praying and more praying...ha, I know 10 of them are under my good trustee momma and 3 more from those shipped eggs are under my other broody so Im praying they do better then me but not giving up on the ones in the bator, Thursday I'm candling and it can't come soon enough! We're in FL so have a good amount of humidity anyways so I'm just going to start adding in the humidity at first cheep and pray for the best...I did put in two of my own eggs that always hatch just so I can judge and make sure it wasn't the incubators fault if the shipped eggs don't hatch!

And yes! Extremely lucky! I wasn't so lucky the time before though and said I'd never help again but what do you do when mommas off the nest and that poor lone egg is just a cheeping away...thank goodness I have the back up incubator now though as a just in case!

 

[blondie34]

Did you poke a hoke in the membrane? If not, I'd LEAVE it. If it hasn't pipped thru the membrane, it may not be ready to breathe on its own yet. I've done this beforeI (opened an egg I thought was bad only to find I was wrong). I'd cracked thru the shell and left the membrane intact. I wrapped it in a damp paper towel and popped it in the incubator for the day. When I woke up the next morning, there was a pretty irritated chick screaming its fuzzy head off in the bator.

Sounds like your humidity was too high to me as well. Good luck, I hope it makes it

I did poke a hole in the membrane I haven't seen much movement or heard anything in a while so I'm just going to play the waiting game and see what happens.. it's so heartbreaking! It is day 25 so we'll see .. I've got a bad feeling the high humidity in there did not help anything! We're in OH but have had nothing but storms and hot sticky weather for the past week as well as us not having central air conditioning so the whole house is pretty muggy in general

 

[blondie34]

I will have to let you know how my first dry hatch goes! I have six in the bator right now BUT it's my first time hatching with this incubator anyways and there shipped eggs

so I'm just hoping and praying and praying and more praying...ha, I know 10 of them are under my good trustee momma and 3 more from those shipped eggs are under my other broody so Im praying they do better then me but not giving up on the ones in the bator, Thursday I'm candling and it can't come soon enough! We're in FL so have a good amount of humidity anyways so I'm just going to start adding in the humidity at first cheep and pray for the best...I did put in two of my own eggs that always hatch just so I can judge and make sure it wasn't the incubators fault if the shipped eggs don't hatch!

And yes! Extremely lucky! I wasn't so lucky the time before though and said I'd never help again but what do you do when mommas off the nest and that poor lone egg is just a cheeping away...thank goodness I have the back up incubator now though as a just in case!

Good luck with your hatch! warm and "fuzzy" thoughts your way! I have a few other eggs under a silkie right now that might get moved inside after this batch is over .. I'd love to keep the eggs out there with the broody but I've got some LF birds living in the same coop/run that aren't too kind to the banties and their eggs

 

[Mama2B&D&...Chickens]

Thanks so much! I want some silkies so bad but that's my biggest fear is my LF getting too tough with them :/ and my begging of another coop for just silkies hasn't happened yet so maybe one day...