Umbilical Cord Question.

[MommaBean]

We've been hatching eggs here for three days and the last chick that hatched has a bulging yellow sac against it's body on the umbilical cord. Any ideas what this is? Should I just give it some time to fall off, I'm hesitant to put it in the brooder in case it is an infection or if the other chicks will peck at it? Thanks!

 

[Bec]

That is the yolk. The baby will absorb it into it's body through that hole. Just keep it in the incubator because, you are right, the other chicks will pick at it. It will absorb and it will be fine!

 

[MommaBean]

Thanks so much for replying so quickly!

 

[MommaBean]

I'm just wondering (and probably being impatient) how long it usually takes to absorb into the body? thanks

 

[Bec]

A day or so, sometimes it is only a matter of hours and sometimes it is longer. Is the baby moving around?

 

[MommaBean]

This chick is moving around. The sac is not attatched to the cord it's attatched to the chick. This chick is very aggressive and always goes after me when I'm doing anything near it. It dropped it's cord today and I tried putting it in with the other chicks hoping they wouldn't notice. They did and pecked a bit but this chick reacted so violently to all the birds it got near. I'm not liking it much to tell the truth. It is seperated from the other chicks. I took a picture of the sack. You can see the cord on the bottom of the picture, it's the white looking glob, the sack that I'm talking about is the round thing above it that's half white and half orange. Any thoughts? Anyone?

 

[Bec]

That is the yolk, but i don;t get why it hasn't absorbed yet??

It isn't that bad though.

Can she try to clip off the rest and leave the yolk sac? Or will that be a bad thing?

Anyone?

 

[SarahFair]

I had a chick that it finally just dried up. I waited about a week for it to fall off. I just ended up twisting it off. No harm done

 

[ChooksChick]

I had a chick like that.

After 4 days I was too worried that something worse would happen, like the yolk would go septic, or the hole between the yolk and the body would widen as the baby grew...so I decided to fix it.

What had happened in her case was there was a herniation, and though the sac was trying to dry up, the yolk kept it too wet from inside, and she wasn't absorbing it all- a little bit of guts had gotten out into the sac.

I held a warm wet cloth up to it for a long time to soften the out side of it and finally slowly pinched it gently so that the contents went in- this was ****SOOOOOOOOOOOO**** difficult and you must be sooooooooo gentle!!! If there's the slightest tear in that sack, the contents of the abdomen can spill out and you can lose your chick in a horrific way!

When the sac was empty, I held it flat (without tension from the body, so as not to separate it) until it stuck to itself. I then let it back in its solitary confinement to await the sac to drop off. It finally joined its mother and siblings after nearly a week- that was a hard introduction!!

Good luck! I hope you don't have the same kind of herniation!

 

[MommaBean]

So I checked on the chick this morning and a turkey and older layer chick had hopped in with it. It seemed to be in fine shape and they weren't pecking at it at all so I let it loose with the other chicks and it seems to have found it's place. So it is now living with a month old layer, three bronze turkeys and 15 other chicks. I will keep watching to make sure that it isn't being picked on. If anyone else has ideas or concerns I would appreciate them.