abbadoodle
Hatching
- May 1, 2023
- 8
- 6
- 9
I just culled a baby chick for the first time and am feeling very sad about it. We had a baby with a difficult hatch. It was our last hatching egg at 25 days. It took a long time after pip to start any progress (a little more than 24 hours) and was moved in the incubator because we were worried it was getting too dried out under the air circulator. Part of the egg popped open across the middle and we tried to very carefully moisten the exposed membrane and then give the baby a chance to try and hatch on its own. This went on for another 12 hours at least, with constant check-ins.
The baby couldn't seem to get out of the membrane as the membrane got a little rubbery and stuck to its head. I was able to gently use a moist Q-tip to unstick the edges and kept checking in every hour to see if anything progressed. Baby was very weak and in the end, after making sure the blood vessels had closed off, helped to gently pull the membrane away from the edges so that it was half out of the shell. Following this, the chick just lay there for a few hours, not moving, but still peeping when I looked in.
Eventually, it wiggled its way out but did not do anything much more than sleep up until this morning (about 14 hours post-hatch). It couldn't hold its head up or stand, and there was a clicking noise in its chest when breathing. I'm unsure if there was anything else wrong but suspect there was as its skull was slightly asymmetrical on one side. I made the decision a little while ago that it was weak and possibly too sick to have a good quality of life. I ended up culling it. I hate second-guessing myself, but I'm not sure what else I could have done. Did I make the best choice I could have? Was there anything else I could have done? Should I have waited longer to see?
The baby couldn't seem to get out of the membrane as the membrane got a little rubbery and stuck to its head. I was able to gently use a moist Q-tip to unstick the edges and kept checking in every hour to see if anything progressed. Baby was very weak and in the end, after making sure the blood vessels had closed off, helped to gently pull the membrane away from the edges so that it was half out of the shell. Following this, the chick just lay there for a few hours, not moving, but still peeping when I looked in.
Eventually, it wiggled its way out but did not do anything much more than sleep up until this morning (about 14 hours post-hatch). It couldn't hold its head up or stand, and there was a clicking noise in its chest when breathing. I'm unsure if there was anything else wrong but suspect there was as its skull was slightly asymmetrical on one side. I made the decision a little while ago that it was weak and possibly too sick to have a good quality of life. I ended up culling it. I hate second-guessing myself, but I'm not sure what else I could have done. Did I make the best choice I could have? Was there anything else I could have done? Should I have waited longer to see?
I know that could not have been easy....
