Will it survive alone until I can get more chicks? I am on Day 21 and this is my first attempt. I have one chick that hatched last night and 5 more eggs with none piping. How long should I wait until I remove this chick? Is it normal for one to hatch a day early, and then for a long time to go by until the others hatch? I have many questions!! Thanks, Liza
I am from the other camp. I do not believe in leaving chicks in the bator, especially when there is no reason to. While physiologically a chick can survive off the yolk for three days, does not neccessarily mean that it should. The human body can also go days w/o food, it doesn't mean that we don't get hungry.
One egg hatching early could signify that it was sitting in a "warm" spot for the duration of incubation therefore development would advance quicker. Some hatches only successfully produce one hatcher. I would not start to give up hope until it's been 48 hours after the first hatcher.
In my opinion the best thing that you can do for an only chick is to get it a couple friends. I raised an only chick from my very first hatch. He was very demanding. lol It was a lot of extra work to assure that he was not lonely. In other words he was out with us a good share of the time, which ment a lot of precautions and poop clean up....lol
Back to the brooder thing. A lot of people believe in leaving the chicks in the bator until the end of hatch or 3 days, whichever comes first. And that's fine if you are comfortable with that. Just as many of us are not comfortable with that. Many of us have varying reasons for why we don't leave our chicks in the incubator. I myself pull my chicks out as they become active and start moving around and they go under the brooder light where they have access to food and water (with sav a chick electrolyte) in it.
It is true that the sounds of chicks peeping encourages others to start and to finish the process of hatching. It keeps them motivated throughout the process. I myself have found a certain video of chicks peeping actually has more motivational factor to the chicks than the actual live chicks themselves.
It all boils down to doing what you are most comfortable with. If you are comfortable with leaving them in, by all means, go ahead. If you are not, then there is absolutely nothing wrong with moving them to the brooder, especially if you have adequate/stabile humidity. (And with no pips there is no worry.) Mind you, he will most likely be loud and needy no matter where he is as long as he is alone.
