I have avoided assisting for years now. I had an experience where I assisted too early, and killed a chick, and was convinced had I left it, it probably would have been okay. It was devastating. As a result, I usually share my experience with the intent to lead someone away from assisting.
With that said, I wish I would have known about this article. It is well written, and I love these articles where it feels like the author really cares about the chicks and my/the chicks success.
Thank you for taking the time to write this, and I will just refer folks here moving forward.
This is the best instructive guide to assisted hatching. Everyone, whether they believe in assisting or not, should read this prior to incubating eggs.
I've read this article multiple time and referred other people to it. I've assisted my eggs successfully because of it. It's simply an awesome article. Easy to understand. Accurate. It gives you confidence to assist and walk others through it.
I have read this article and then referred to it several times as my chickd, ducklings and goslings hatch. It is very informative, easy to understand and a great reference to me.
This guide was super helpful. I saved two malpositioned but otherwise strong and healthy chicks so far that would not have hatched by themselves. I plan to do the same with any incubated eggs in future that need just a little helping hand to enter the world.
Thank you so much for this article. I just incubated 10 eggs. Only 5 hatched on their own. I assisted 4 of them and they are all doing great! The other one was already dead when I cracked it open. I'm so happy to have 9 chicks instead of just five!!
Omg once I read this I realised how much of a miracle my first hatchling was. She is a australorpe frizzle and she was our first hatch, 100% unassisted and she is super strong… from what I can tell now she hatched too early she finished zipping and gave one big push and she popped out, she still had a yolk (we thought that was normal) and now I can tell she hatched feet over head and away from her air cell