4m x 3m Omlet pen, cube, new auto door still boxed and coop light

[craftyhunnypie]

Yesterday, one of my eggs pipped. A tiny triangle that stayed the same all day with the occasional egg tooth poking through. Got up this morning, bit of progress, hole size of my little finger nail & can see beak opening & closing (cheeping). But there is a teeny bit of blood, should I be worried? I'm worried that it is struggling to get out, but don't want to help it as I don't want a weak poorly chick. What should I do?

 

Emma.x

[bronze]

Don't worry for now. Mine starting pipping yesterday night (early) there were two that pipped and one had a spot of blood. I was really quite worried as I only noticed they had pipped when I went in to set it up for hatching and stop the movement. I had been running it dry (wont do that again) and was worried that it hadnt been humid enough and that they were then going to give up and die in shell. I have 10 chicks so far and numbers 9 and 10 are the two that pipped first. they hatched the early hours of this morning. The one with blood has a tiny (now stopped) bleed at the very beginning of its comb where I suspect it had caugt itself on the shell. Some chicks can just take a long time and other seem to go from pipping to hatching in minutes and to be honest if the blood is anything more sinister theres not much you can do.

[craftyhunnypie]

Hi thanks bronze. We have been out at Wernlas all day (see other thread). Came home to find chick had made a bit of progress but more blood and the membrane was drying quickly and becoming hard & crusty in places. Not a nice sight. My sister came for a barbeque and took the eggs from the incubator to crack open bit by bit. She carefully took away bits of shell from the chick that was stuck. It was cheeping, but bleeding lots and shell & membrane stuck to it a lot. It's head was stuck under its wing where it was beginning to dry out. My sister helped it out of this situation and managed to free it from the egg. We put it on kitchen towel under heat straight away, it was still losing blood from somwhere. We left it and it lived about a couple of hours then sadly died.

We did have a little sniffle, as a bit upset - because it had been cheeping at us earlier. We will bury it properly tomorrow.

We think the problem was that the shells were so so tough, not like normal eggs.

The other 2 eggs, one had quit very early on - the other was fully formed but not mangaed to break out from the egg & died. I'm sure it was just the strength of the egg shells & maybe not fantastic eggs. Think I'm best sticking to eggs from Wernlas.

 

Emma.x

[Egluntyne]

Sad news.

[Christian]

Sorry to hear that Emma

[Paola]

How sad, so sorry

[craftyhunnypie]

Thanks everyone, I won't be hatching any more until mid July now I don't think. I'll have another trip to Wernlas & get some eggs from good stock.

I rather fancy some bantams next - dutch & maybe some seabrights for the eglu which is coming soon.

 

Emma.x

[The Dogmother]

That's sad Emma. There are schools of thought both for and against helping them out of the shells, as in some cases, it can cause more damage by taking bits of the shell away.

 

As you say, it may just have been because the shell was so tough.

[bronze]

I'm sorry to hear that. Rather than physically helping a chick out by peeling it out (this damages the membranes) I lightly spray it with water where its starting to dry out. I had to do that with a couple of mine this time as as I had said I started off too dry. 11/15 aint bad.

[superjules]

Oh, how sad. You must be terribly disappointed.

 

Hope it goes better for you next time.

[Karen & co.]

So sorry to hear about your little chick

 

Karen x