stuck in incubator

[Akane]

I woke up to a chick screaming to find it had hatched and is stuck on it's back struggling to turn upright. I'm thinking some of it's drying feathers are stuck to the metal mesh. What should I do about it? Will it eventually come loose? Will I ruin my hatch if I try to open the lid. They are actually due to hatch this afternoon and 3 others have just pipped so far. My hovabator takes a long time to get the humidity back up. Humidity is definitely high enough at 84%.

 

[Solsken Farm]

I have no experience, but I am going to say my gut instinct is to help free it. If you can, leave it in the hatcher until it dries.

Poor both of you. How stressful.

Good luck with your hatch and post a pic of the baby (ies).

 

[bangor777]

I take my chicks out as they hatch and dry, just to keep them from running all over the eggs. just be quick, reach in and help the poor little one up! let us know how you make out!

 

[Akane]

I decided to wait a little while so long as it was still active and it managed to free itself and now is wobbling around the incubator. A 2nd one hatched in that time and when they are both dry I'm going to slip them out to the brooder. I also pulled the other vent plug after that to lower the humidity back to 70%. Dunno why it got stuck with so much humidity. It was barely managing to dry with it that high.

 

[silkiechicken]

Perhaps it wasn't really stuck, but just didn't know how to right itself. I've had chicks take a decent amount of time to figure out that feet go down, back goes up. They just laid there and kicked. Sometimes if humidity is a bit high over all, the chicks can be amazingly sticky. Or, if it hatched out and didn't start to stand fast enough, some of the hatching goo could have dried to the mesh. Regardless, congrats on the fluffy butts!