Maybe this thread should be in the incubating chickens sections, but.. . here goes.
I am an elementary school nurse and our kindergarten classes were incubating eggs recently but I was unaware of it, as they are in a different wing of our large school. Most of the dozen chicks made it out and were their cute little fluffy selves. 2 eggs had candled empty and one little chick pipped on day 21, but then was stuck. The teachers let it peep and peep stuck in the shell for FOUR days. Yesterday (day 25 for the eggs) after school one of the older children came down to ask if I could loan them some tweezers so they could try to get the chick out of the shell. I brought down some tweezers to see if I could help. They had already tried with some plastic tweezer forceps to remove some of the shell and dried out membrane (about a dime size) and there was some blood.
Anyway, this was a new thing to me, having never incubated eggs myself; and I tried to remove as much of the shell as I could. The poor little chick seemed so desperate to get out. I should have got on the forum FIRST and read up on how to remove the membrane, but like a stupido I didn't. So I tried to pick the dried membrane off the chick. Of course it was stuck so the chick was bleeding and injured. When he was cleaned off, We put him back in the bator to stay warm and rest. The teachers went home knowing the chick probably wouldn't make it. I stayed at school trying to catch up on paper work last night until 10:30 and kept checking on the little one. He never dried out, couldn't stand up or lift his head, but just kept peeping more and more faintly and kind of rolling around. It was so pitiful. Toward the end of the evening, the custodian and I decided he just was suffering and was weaker and seemed in poorer condition than he had 7 hours before, so Rick ended his life. If there was nobody else around, I would have done it myself, as the baby was looking so weak and terrible.
Now I feel bad. I check this forum about absolutely everything related to chickens. If I had taken a few minutes to check on here first, I would have handled the situation differently. I would have made an effort to soak the membrane off to minimize injuring the chick; and it would have had a better chance. He still may have died -- 4 days stuck in the egg trying to get out was not good -- but he may have made it.
Oh well. I tried, but I feel like I didn't do my best.
I am an elementary school nurse and our kindergarten classes were incubating eggs recently but I was unaware of it, as they are in a different wing of our large school. Most of the dozen chicks made it out and were their cute little fluffy selves. 2 eggs had candled empty and one little chick pipped on day 21, but then was stuck. The teachers let it peep and peep stuck in the shell for FOUR days. Yesterday (day 25 for the eggs) after school one of the older children came down to ask if I could loan them some tweezers so they could try to get the chick out of the shell. I brought down some tweezers to see if I could help. They had already tried with some plastic tweezer forceps to remove some of the shell and dried out membrane (about a dime size) and there was some blood.
Anyway, this was a new thing to me, having never incubated eggs myself; and I tried to remove as much of the shell as I could. The poor little chick seemed so desperate to get out. I should have got on the forum FIRST and read up on how to remove the membrane, but like a stupido I didn't. So I tried to pick the dried membrane off the chick. Of course it was stuck so the chick was bleeding and injured. When he was cleaned off, We put him back in the bator to stay warm and rest. The teachers went home knowing the chick probably wouldn't make it. I stayed at school trying to catch up on paper work last night until 10:30 and kept checking on the little one. He never dried out, couldn't stand up or lift his head, but just kept peeping more and more faintly and kind of rolling around. It was so pitiful. Toward the end of the evening, the custodian and I decided he just was suffering and was weaker and seemed in poorer condition than he had 7 hours before, so Rick ended his life. If there was nobody else around, I would have done it myself, as the baby was looking so weak and terrible.
Now I feel bad. I check this forum about absolutely everything related to chickens. If I had taken a few minutes to check on here first, I would have handled the situation differently. I would have made an effort to soak the membrane off to minimize injuring the chick; and it would have had a better chance. He still may have died -- 4 days stuck in the egg trying to get out was not good -- but he may have made it.
Oh well. I tried, but I feel like I didn't do my best.
.
