when to help?-Support needed. 1st hatch.

[glowworm]

Wait till tonight (about 24 hours since pip) to help. You can very carefully make the zip line for them- be careful not to nip the inner membrane in the process.

Put a warm, wet paper towel loosley around the egg and put them back in the bator. If they are meant to hatch they will push themselves the rest of the way out of the egg. It might take over night for them to manage to get out, so be aware of that. If you try to remove them completely from the shell, you run into problems with them bleeding or having yolk attached.

 

[RedTailRanch]

I had the same problem as futurefarmer08. I had to go to a job interview and the one chick was struggling. The first one zipped out so fast I would have missed it if I had not gone into the bator room at that exact moment. But the other chick just couldn't seem to get out of the shell. It had pipped/zipped all around the shell, but the membrane seemed rubbery and it couldn't break free.

Since I had to leave, I made the decision to help break a few of the membrane "bands" that were keeping the chick in. It finished pushing itself out of the shell on it's own.

Now that chick is a week and a half old and bigger than the chick who zipped out first! Although that (first) chick is a little instigator and trouble maker! lol

 

[Akane]

So long as they are still peeping and have pipped enough they can breathe I would leave them. If they are actually healthy chicks they will survive for days like that and sometimes it can take them more than 24hrs to go from pip to zip or hatch. Unless it really looks like something is going wrong (judgement call that can't be made online) I help after the rest have hatched. Then any stuck chicks are definitely ready and you can pull the end off the egg without worrying about blood vessels. They usually just fall right out and start running around at that point. Unless I really think something is wrong I wait until 24hrs after all other chicks have finished hatching and there are no new pips. Early pips can be the last ones to hatch even if nothing is wrong. If they are coming out with yolk sacs still attached then they are just barely ready to hatch anyway. They could have waited longer if they wanted to and helping would have been a bad thing.

 

[chickenlover456]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=9316

This thread talks about when or when not to intervene. BYC is a lifesaver.

Good luck!

 

[buckeye lady]

2 chicks in brooder. 1 zipped and kicked off shell on it's own. and one pipped, I helped it zip and it kicked shell off on its own. Transfered into brooder when they were dry. Both are doing well-chirping, drinking, napping. 5 eggs left in bator, 1 has been peeping since 3:00PM, No zip yet.