If you read my other post you will know that 2 nights ago the 1st of our 3 Barbu de Watermael (Blue Quail in color) eggs hatched out but the other 2 had not pipped externally yet but had internally and were still alive. We left them last night in the hope that they were just a bit later than the other chick but in the morning neither had hatched nor pipped out :/ I candled them but it looked like one was had died (exhaustion and suffocation) but the other was moving, barely. So I made a hole into the air-sac on both eggs and started to peel away the shell from that area. Unfortunately one was had died, very very sad, I hate it when they die at that stage. But the other was alive and I had to gently ease him out of the egg. He was well overdue for hatching out, ll the membrane was very dry and there was no bleeding. This chick was incredibly weak, it couldn’t even lift its head but after 12 hours in the incubator he was almost as lively and fluffy as the 1st chick! A few hours ago I took them both out of the incubator and sat with them in-front of the fire whilst we waited for the little indoor brooder to warm up as these guy are so tiny and wobbly that I daren’t risk putting the in the large brooder, they’d get lost!
Here is a picture of them fast asleep in my hands, apparently they make for an excellent replacement mum!:
Its such a shame about the chick that died, I keep thinking if only I’d done something the other night but I don’t like interfering and its such a delicate thing, you can easily damage or kill the unborn chick, its way more nerve-racking than dealing with big clumsy horses!
