Why can't you just break the egg?

[Jmurcks]

This may be a silly question but when a chick starts to pip why can't you just break the egg open?
Jenn

 

[FireTigeris]

Because the actual hatching strengthens the chick - pushes the yolk sac inside and causes the blood vessles all over the egg to dry up and the blood to go into the chicks body.

(No stupid / silly questions.

)

 

[canada-goose]

It's a "survival of the fittest" thing.

Also, the chick might still be attached to the egg and you can injure it by trying to hurry up the hatching process.

 

[gvntofly05]

Because the chick needs to absorb all of the yolk and blood from the vessels in the membrane. It can take 24 hours or longer to do so after it pips the egg!

 

[ADozenGirlz]

Quote:
There are no silly questions and that's a valid one, certainly. When a chick starts to pip, she still has work to do inside the shell. I'm no expert, but I do know that all of the blood in the membrane needs to be absorbed by the chick before they hatch and it does NOT happen by the time of the first pip! The yolk sac also needs to be absorbed into the body, which serves as the chick's nutrition source for the next few days. If you interfere with that process by breaking the egg open prematurely, the chick will most assuredly bleed to death.

 

[sred98]

The chick has like a belly button area on it's stomach where the yolk sucks up into it's body while it is pipping. If it doesn't do that, then it's insides can come out and it can also bleed to death. It's hard to wait, but you neeeeed to!!!

Shelly

 

[Jmurcks]

I have just always wondered that... I mean you would think that on their hatch date you could just crack the egg and drop them out, haha!
But seriously I have two eggs that I may have misnumbered because they were supposed to hatch yesterday and I don't even see a pip, yet.
I can hear chirping, though, so I know they are still alive in there... but it got me thinking about the egg breaking thing!
Thanks for all the replies and help!
Jenn

 

[kid-n-chickens]

if you can hear them chirping then they are in the air cell and will be pipping soon! Good LUCK!!!

 

[Qi Chicken]

It's kind of like a human baby. Unfortunately in the US we have gotten into the habit of cutting the umbilical cord as soon as the baby is born. Technically the blood in the cord is still returning to the baby and should not be cut until it is done pumping. I can't remember now the amt of blood that is still in there but it was really a lot. (comparatively)

 

[FenDruadin]

What everyone else already said. I have heard of people accidentally breaking the egg late in incubation and the chick being fine, but usually it's quite dangerous because the baby can easily bleed to death and/or the yolk can dry up before it has been completely re-absorbed.

It's actually quite similar to what happens in humans in the very rare case of a "placenta previa," or when during a C-section the doctor accidentally nicks the placenta with surgical tools (much more common than placenta previa--in humans as in chicks, most of the time it's best to let well enough alone already! lol). In either case, the placenta is still full of blood and is still connected to the baby's blood stream, so when it starts to bleed, the baby can quickly bleed to death. (Placenta previa is when the placenta partially covers the cervix so in order to be born, the baby has to push through the placenta which tears it and can cause both mother & baby to bleed to death--like I said, EXTREMELY rare, so no worries for any new moms-to-be out there, lol).

In the case of a chick, by the time it is ready to hatch, it is essentially completely surrounded by its "placenta." In order to hatch, it has to cut off the blood supply to the "placenta" so that it won't bleed to death. The way it does that is that it turns in the shell and gradually punches a line around the shell, which also punches those blood vessels shut. Then it rests, absorbs the rest of its yolk, and then pushes its way out. That is why it takes so long from pip to hatch.

And it's also why you can't just crack an egg open and expect the baby to be fine any more than you can just rip a baby & its placenta out by C-section without some pretty nifty hand-work by a skilled doctor (obviously that's necessary to preserve the mother's life too, but I'm just sayin'--the baby would die too if the doctor weren't working pretty hard to prevent it).