incubating 6 shipped eggs. 3 chicks hatched from day 19 - 20. 2 chicks clearly in trouble and did assisted hatch morning of 21. chicks were stuck in the shell. I was able to successfully remove the shell from the inner membrane. Found the inner membrane not shrink wrapped. There was no blood - no veining, chicken had soiled inside one of the shells. At that point, the chicks were still stuck and decided to remove the membranes. I dampened the membranes with warm water and a cotton swab while slowly removing the membranes with a tweezers. The chicks are great and in the incubator. I have one more egg in there, looks to be doing the same thing. It was a very late starter (looked like day 14 when I candled at day 18). Going to leave that egg alone for now. Here is the question, the backs of the chicks all look like the feathers were developing but are shiny and not fluffy. You can see the feathers but they have a hard coating over them - like something dried on them. Do I leave this alone and let nature fix it? I candled the eggs at days 10, 14, 18. I've used this incubator a number of times with no problems. This was different. We have moved, new house, new climate and with shipped eggs. I found the eggs had rolled a tads towards them selves on each candling. I also rotated the eggs at each candling. In hindsight, I wonder if the cabinet top not being totally level - just a tad off, allowed the incubator to roll the eggs, but at some point, when they began touching each other, the eggs no longer rolled but just slid in the incubator. Trying to figure out what when sideways and what to do about the chicks backs. Thank you. Note: these are the chicks that hatched by themselves. The others are still in the incubator.
