Ameraucana Breeders Club
The Official Forum of the Ameraucana Breeders Club => Housing, Health & Hatching => Topic started by: DeWayne Edgin on September 30, 2013, 09:37:26 PM
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I know you are not supposed to help a chick hatch. I had six eggs from a black hen and a blue rooster in my incubator. Last Thursday on day 21, five had hatched at the same time. The sixth egg was not cracked but it was chirping real loud! This went on for a few days and on Sunday night it still was not pipped. I figured it would die either way so i broke it open and toke all of the shell off of the chick. It is getting around real fast in the brooder and doing fine. It sure isn't acting like it is weak at all. I also had 4 blue chicks hatch from these 6 eggs and their father was born last February, and is still very young.
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DeWayne:
I hope you have better success than I in such situations. I have had the same experience a couple of times, only to have the chick die after a few days. Good luck!
Duane
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I have helped 5 or 6 chicks get out of their shell after they started hatching, and they turned out just fine. But this chick never started to get out and i broke open the egg and toke it out of the shell. Today it is still running around with the other 5. Every time i get close to brooder it takes off real fast. We will see in a few more days if it makes it.
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If it survives, I don't recommend keeping it for breeding. I had heard not to break chicks out of the egg because they would be unthrifty and end up dying anyway, but that was not my experience. I broke quite a few chicks out early on and they grew up to be big, beautiful healthy hens, who laid big, beautiful eggs. I was feeling quite proud of myself until I tried to hatch those beautiful eggs. You guessed it - the chicks could not get out of them. I'd put a lot of time & feed into them and it hurt to cull them at that point, but rather than perform c-sections on every hatch they went down the road as layers.
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Lessons learned the hard way are lessons remembered.
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I never thought of that being an issue later on. Thanks for the advice, i guess i wont be keeping it anyway. I will have lots more hatch soon anyway. Thanks
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The only way I would help one out is if it was stuck to the membrane after zipping all the way around. Sometimes a sudden change in humidity will cause them to dry out... Probably my fault for opening the incubator for too long. If they only pip a little then it's "survival of the fittest".
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Anything I ever helped to hatch ended up having cross beak, so I don't do it anymore.
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Max: I will still do that if I catch one. When they are fully zipped but "shrink-wrapped" I figure that's environmental rather than genetic.
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I helped one out... it had lost it's egg tooth and that's the only reason I helped it out. I just finished cracking the shell (gently) all the way around and out it came on it's own. It grew up fine and ended up being a roo... and went to freezer camp.