To help a sloooow pipper or not?? UPDATE!!

[suzettex5]

Aaaghh- Such a conundrum.. Any advice is very welcome, heres the story-

We hatched 4 already from the same clutch in our incubator, temp and humidity is the same, but one egg pipped yesterday at 10 am and has made Zero progress since. Its been 25 hours now. We can see the beak, but the white membrane around the hole is starting to turn dark. From what we can see, its not dried out, and not shrink wrapped. The baby does move a little bit, but the cheeping is getting very quiet, and it only moves its beak when stimulated. I dont know if we should help at this point. Rock and a hard place. We have plenty of chicks, so to lose one wouldnt kill us, but darn it- I really want this one to make it. I know helping can kill, but I'm begining to think leaving it alone will end up in death too. These are just barnyard chicks, but the others have had no problems with hatching. Oh, except one had slimey yellow gunk all on its head at hatch, but its fine now.

If anyone thinks I should help, Please tell me what I should do
If I should leave it alone, tell me why and how much longer.

Sorry about any sp mistakes, Im typing one-handed right now, holding my baby whos not feeling so good in the other.

Update-

Well, I waited and waited..nothing. So I performed a painstakingly slow e-section (yes, Egg section) and helped the baby out. The membrane was pretty dry and tough, but I dont think that was the initial problem. It had one foot behind its head and one above its head, with its beak pointed straight at its belly button. I think it was in a bad position for hatching. I hope thats not genetic. It was a big chick too- a jersey giant crossed with a Marans polish cross. All the siblings are bigger than the 3 day old Blue Andalusian chicks I brought home. (I'm guessing on the BA age- they have wing feathers though) The eggs did not seem big enough to hold those big ol' chicks!

Anyways, the chick has SURVIVED my intervention, and is currently peeping his head off!! His/her name is......you guessed it- Lucky!! Looks just like a real Jersey giant chick so far, even though it is a cross. I will try to post pics on the Jersey Giant thread started by Kathyinmo tonight!

Thanks!

 

[miniwhipkey]

That is a hard choice. I would wait a little long, but that is just me.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

My opinion is that if all the others hatched out on their own then leave that one be. You're not doing yourself any favors by hatching out weak chicks.

.....Alan.

 

[oldno7ranch]

If it was me personally going through what you are, I would start chipping the egg a little to see if any of the membrane still has blood in it, If not I would help him clear his head and see what happens from there. I know when we were little kids, My sister and i found a hiiden pile of eggs that we thought were no good and we never saw chickens over there, we started breaking the eggs for the chickens and cats to eat when I dropped one I was holding and there was a chirping chick on the ground!! We started breaking and hatching all of them every single one of those eggs the chicks made it and we didn't know any better, we were kids. My mother hit the fan though when she found out what we were doing...lol So long story short if they are going to make it they will no matter what, I have help some out even now as a adult and not had to many failures...The pic of the little chick on the left I helped hatch he was the the only one out of 10 that hatched!! Hope this helps. But in the end its your choice to help or not. GOOD LUCK!!!

 

[suzettex5]

Thanks everyone- I agree with Alan, I dont want weak chicks, but to be honest, i want to try to help the little guy.. I think I will wait a bit more and then slowly intervene. If its weak and gonna die, i cant do anything wrong, right?

I'm gonna take tiny pieces off at a time if it is still in there in a few hours and just see what happens.

Thanks all!