Hi Mark, Suprise, suprise, no doubt. This wet weather and the unpredictable
humidity have really played havoc with the hatches this year.

I saved several chicks by relieving the pressure in this manner. If I hadn't
when they sat there for an extended period of time and breathed they would begin
to swell in the egg as their cells became oxygenated.

Once the swelling starts the fluids begin to accumulate at the point where the
chick first pipped and in a very short time the chick will drown.

Just before this happens it is up to the individual wether they want to help or
let the chick drown. As I have told you a few times I have left chicks a little
too long and it messed up their legs or feet permanently and I had to put them
down. If you pop the caps too early then the chick will often set there and dry
out but most don't die in this circumstance. They just have to be moistened and
eased out of their egg a few chips at a time.

In a normal year, and I might add we haven't seen one of those in a long time, I
would let nature take it's course. But under the present circumstances the
chicks in question have all been strong and healthy once they were freed from
their confined condition. Dean
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"Mark" <mmontgomery@...> wrote:
Dean,
On Sunday morning I had three Bantam Welsummer eggs that had pipped and turned
color as you had said, so I knew that they were getting swollen and stuck from
being too wet and would die. I did not have time to help them out, but did pop
the tops off quickly, not as far down as I should have, but I just did not have
time. When I got back home in the afternoon I saw that these three chicks had
not gotten out, so I knew they were dead, as what always happened when I saw
eggs pipped in the morning and not fresh (dead in the afternoon). However,
these were alive and squirming, they were now dry and could not get out.
Evidently I had relieved the pressure as they swelled so that they did not die.
I then helped them out with warm paper towels, slowly removing shell. All three
are alive and doing fine. What a shocker.
Mark in NC