I am incubating around 15 eggs (started out with 4 dozen but lost alot to power outages) I am up to 4 pips as of today and its coming up on 24hours since the first baby pipped... Im just a little worried because I dont want to loose any of these babies... Humidity is up to 60.. How long should I wait before I step in and help chick #1? Edit to say that I can see the membrane the chick is wrapped in, it doesnt look white but doesnt look wet either... its getting to that point in between (It looked great lastnight) Also I see no veins on the membrane!!
If the chick is still active and working away (even slowly) I wouldn't bother it yet. Once you think it's in distress, go ahead an step in. Man I hope the chicken gods don't shun me for that
Quote:she's made no progress at all since yesterday.. She was screaming her head off but now she's just laying there in the egg.. (to be honest I think the whole "helping a chick out is bad" thing is a load of bull.. Of the 8 babies I hatched in August, only 1 hatched naturally and I cant tell who it was but they all lived.. I just hatched out 3 other babies october naturally and I ended up losing one..)
Knowing when to help is hard. I often mis-guess. When a chick hatches, it goes though a process. It has to learn to breath air instead of breathe a liquid. It needs to absorb the yolk. It needs to dry up certain blood vessles. Some chicks do a lot of this between internal pip and external pip. I like these. They seem to hatch quickly. Some do a lot of this between external pip and zip. These worry us. Some even zip before they completely absorb the yolk or maybe even dry up all the blood vessels. Sometimes these don't make it but a lot of times they do. Every time you open the incubator to help one, you take a chance you will hurt another, so I am reluctant to open it. But I have done it. You have to do what you have to do. Sometimes I shrink-wrap another but usually I don't. The only guideline I can give is that if you see a yellow foam start to come out of the pip, it is now or never. That chick is ready to die. I've saved some at that stage and I've lost more. Other than that, just go with your gut.
I hatched my first batch of Serama's last week and what I found out is that they need more help then other bantams, I waited 24 hrs on one and it was dead when I went in to help. So I made up my mind that if they were making no progress I would help and I had to do that with 2 more eggs, as long as you go slowly and stop when you see blood and let it sit for an hour and then go back in it should be ok. If I would not have gone in I would have lost 2 more. I think because they are so small they get tired and then the membrane dries out and they get stuck.
Quote:im scared to go with my gut because im getting more pips so I dont think she's completely shrink wrapped but then that worries me that there might be a defect that is preventing her from hatching completely.. I've only opened the incubator long enough to take 1 egg out that I knew was dead (wasnt around the house on lockdown day so I didnt get a chance to grab it) and I sprayed the eggs a couple times with warm water to make up for the humidity that was lost when I opened it. I did that with my Ocotober hatch an they all hatched fine (had a staggard hatch in oct.)
