The trolley problem: with hatching chicks. - Which chicks do I watch die?

[Näkki]

Incubator, day 21.

Bantam wyandottes in white gold laced. They are damn pretty, and damn hard to get out here.

One woke me up this morning, chirping away, but to this point — 12 hours later, it hasn't gotten out yet.

The membrane is turning yellow, indicating its now stuck in it.

I have 8 more eggs to go, set not a single one has wiggled or chirped yet.

If I open the incubator, I might endanger all other 8. If I don't, I accept that this first chick will likely die. I can try to help it, but it might die anyway. I do not know if any of the other eggs are still ready to hatch.

What would you do?

 

[Banditotron]

Eat eggs yum

 

[Wowcoolusername]

Based on my experiences, save the one and let the other 8 play out.

 

[Furret]

I don't know anything about chickens so take my advice with a grain of salt, but I would probably let the first one die for the other eight.

 

[Mr. Bung]

Open it up very briefly and try to save the chick. Maybe you could heat just that one room really hot with space heaters etc when it happens to soften the blow of opening the incubator?

 

[Penis Drager]

Leave them be. If the first one dies make chicken nuggies

 

[lowenergy]

My grandma raised chickens/birds and hatched them out via an incubator pretty frequently, so I have a bit of experience with this.

first bring up the humidity in the incubator as high as you can. Put tubs of water in there, this will help.


Next I would take a flashlight and in a dark room hold up the flashlight to the egg and look for the air cell. You can place a hole in the air cell with a needle to help the chick to breathe, if it hasn’t done so already (not sure about the progression of the hatching) if it has already done so, then:
Take warm water, and a q tip, and moisten the membrane to see if there are any veins, so you can avoid them. If the beak made a little hole, use a needle to poke the hole and slowly make it bigger. If the chick continues to try to get out let it do its thing in a humid, warm place. But if the chick doesn’t do anything, gently move the membrane away from the nostrils and free it’s face. Then put back into incubator with lots of moisture.
The rest of the eggs will be on their own timeline, so it’s normal for them to hatch at different points. I would just keep the first chick in a tub with a heat lamp/other amenities until it can be joined by its siblings.

I hope this helps!

edited to add advice from grandma

 

[Näkki]

Thank you so much for your help. I managed to free it, but sadly I just had to put it down. Shouldn't have named it. None of the others ever hatched. I assume parent and or shipping issues.

Now, for some weed and wine.