Trying To Help A Chicken Egg Hatch

[Southernbell]

thanks, but idk where to poke a hole....for one, i dont see the beak, and for twos, there are veins EVERWHERE in the membrane, and the chick must have NO desire to live because it is'nt so much as even moving, except for when i touch it, and if I take it out to poke a hole in it, like i said, there are veins everywhere and when i take it out for so long it gets too cold and stops moving at all......Im scared, please give some more advice , soem that positive would be nice.......but I need someones advice..... thanks....oh and about the picture to post, i havent taken any pics of it and even if i did, i would still have no clue on how to post it

 

[Southernbell]

I am trying to post the link to my interfered egg. Don't know if it worked or not. Not to savvy with the picture thing. Please let me know if you can see the picture. Thanks for all your help!

 

[nurse_turtle]

Wrap that egg loosely in a warm moist paper towel and stop opening the bator. Each time you open the bator, you risk shrink-wrapping the other chicks in their shells. Why are you misting the eggs? If the water trays are used correctly, you do not need to spray the eggs with anything. What kind of incubator are you using?

 

[Southernbell]

this picture is of my interfered egg. I am the one that did ALL of that.. I feel stupid.

 

[Southernbell]

my incubator is a still air, styraphome incubator from tractor supply.....and i was misting because someone i know at the feed store told me to do that

 

[nurse_turtle]

Not stupid, just wrong. The chick needs the shell to push its body against when it is hatching. Once the shell is removed like that, he has nothing to push against and will just wallow around in the membrane until he dies of exhaustion. If a chick hatches before it's ready, it may have unabsorbed yolk still attached and will most likely die. When it comes to artificial egg hatching, less is more.

The Little Giant still air incubator is a horrible piece of equipment. I had one once. I used it once and the temp spiked to 110 over night and I lost 36 eggs. I renamed it the "murder-bator" and sold it after 1 use. I think it's definitely the wrong choice for a newbie. That's not your fault though. Many of us learn the hard way. Now that you have this website, things are going to start looking better. Keep reading and researching and success will come. (that sounds like a fortune cookie).

 

[Southernbell]

so what do i do?

 

[Ariel301]

Leave it for now, there is still too much blood in the membrane to hatch it by hand. Wrap it in a damp paper towel. If the chick is not moving at all, ever, it's possibly already dead, or it might just be really tired and not ready to come out. Since you have already opened it up, you will probably have to finish helping it hatch when it's ready (if it hasn't died.) When the blood vessels are not flowing any more (they will shrink down to really thin and be a dark brownish red instead of bright red) then it is safe to peel the membrane away from the chick. Peel slowly, and if you see a blood vessel still functioning, or get any bleeding, stop and wait a little more.

I've had to hatch a few dozen chicks this way because I had an incubator that was giving me a lot of problems. I personally don't care to "let nature take its course" with incubator eggs when I can quite easily prevent a chick from dying by manually hatching it. I haven't found that the ones having trouble are weak or anything, they're just like the others and grow up to be just fine. My problem has either been because of an incubator that won't hold humidity correctly, so they get shrink wrapped, or egg shells that are thick and rock hard and just plain hard to break through.

 

[ladyomaha]

Quote:
I was Misting the eggs too at first, but found that it Drowns them so I ahve stopped doing that and went to the sponge Method, or Just a High cup of water so if they hatch they cant get in it and Drownd that way. you are not stupid, Just learning, take what you learn and use it for the next time. Keep your head up, we have all made mistakes, But try not to open the bator. Hard to do but is the best.

 

[Southernbell]

okay, thank you so very much....but, just outa curiosity, why the damp paper towel?