When to help?

[di]

Well this was all going to be top secret until we had,hopefully,good news to share.

We've got some eggs incubating,fertilised by our Boys before they met their final destiny.

Reason for sharing now?...One started pipping last night,early evening and has really made little progress since.We picked off a couple of bits around the pip hole late this afternoon and the hole is now about the size of a small fingernail.The problem seems to be that all the chick is doing is poking it's beak out of the hole and nothing more...making no attempt whatsoever to break any more shell.It's cheeping and opening/closing it's beak so we know it's alive.

So....is this a normal length of time for things to progress or should we make an attempt to help it out?(tempting as it is to nip a bit of here and there it actually fills me with dread the actual thought of 'helping' it and it ends up bleeding to death
I'm sure our last lot were only 24 hours from pipped to hatched....and pretty sure the chicks didn't sit lazily with their beaks hanging out the pip hole!

[Nicos]

how is it now????

[di]

It didn't make it

There's two more pipping away and cheeping like crazy....they seem to have the right idea about how to break out,although it's still stressy.I just hope at least two hatch to keep each other company.

[Suechooks]

Sorry to hear your little one didn't make it.
I had one that didn't seem to have any idea and the membrane was drying up so I kept dripping water on the membrane and picking bits of shell off and VERY CAREFULLY tearing tiny bits of membrane - watching out for any blood vessels. This one was over 24 hours later than the first one out and has survived ok so far (4 weeks) in fact I'm not sure which one it is now! I decided to help it out because it was obviously making no progress.
I hope you get some more out! Keep us posted!

[Nicos]

Awww...poor little thing - so sad to get so near eh???

maybe there was something wrong with it?

...still- fingers crossed you have two bouncing chicks by tonight!!!

[MaureenHall]

Sorry little pip didn't make it Di, and sorry I wasn't around when you wanted to chat last night xxxx

I don't know how many times we do exciting things and hit problems, I'm certainly still on a steep learning curve here. I'd have done exactly the same as you did - keep humidity up, dampen the shell and membrane around the hole and pick tiny loose pieces of shell away to help the littley. It might not have made it even after all that though, and then there's also the risk of letting the temperature and humidity drop too much and harming the other chicks that are trying to hatch. What we're told to do, what we're advised to do, what we should do and what we actually do do are often all different things, but we learn from our "mistakes". I'm so sorry little one died though xxxxxx



(ps It was lovely having a chat )

[RichmondHens]

Sorry to hear it Di, how disappointing. I have found that when a chick makes a hole, rather than a crack, it has more of a struggle trying to get out. The ones that make a crack come out much faster. The holey ones may come, and I dampen the edges of the hole to keep membranes damp, but I have noticed a bit of a pattern in hatching.

Are they in a machine, or under a hen? I'm presuming machine as you have been able to watch its progress (or lack of).

Fingers crossed for the rest.

[mr darcy]

what a shame; but that's nature although always sad when babies are lost before they've even started; better luck with the others, hope it's all going well

[di]

Morning.
I don't think it would have made it with or without help...we intervened a bit as it so obviously wasn't doing anything.
As Maureen says,the problem with helping is worrying about risking the temp/humidity dropping for the others so it was a couple of little chips away at the shell and back in.
On inspecting it,it seems all of it's intestines were on the outside...I've googled and found this can be caused by infrequent turning but they were religiously turned five times a day so I don't really know what went on there?

[di]

Sorry Richmond....they're in an incubator.Although we were never going to go down that route again we were desperate to at least try to get babies from our First boys before they became dinner.(I did drop a tiny hint on your incubator versus Broody thread )

[RichmondHens]

It's very difficult deciding whether or not to help a chick hatch. There is often a good reason why they can't get out on their own, and its nature's way of weeding out the weak from the strong. My father, who kept chickens for over 40 years, never ever helped anything hatch. His opinion was that only the ones who make it unaided are truly healthy and worth keeping. It's very hard not to intervene though when you watch something struggling, and especially when you have a rare breed egg/something you have spent a lot of money on.