Yesterday and the day before, four more chicks hatched, 1-2 days ahead of schedule. Five eggs made it to hatch, three hatched very quickly, the first egg to pip hatched fourth -- and nearly made me hyperventilate watching it struggle and not intervening -- and the fifth pipped but, unfortunately, never zipped and died in the shell.
Even though it's only been three weeks since the first clutch hatched, they've grown so much that I almost forgot how tiny they are. The white tip on its beak is called the "egg tooth." As the name implies, it is used to break out of the shell, and in another day or so, it will fall off. Then the Chicken Tooth Fairy comes and puts chick feed under its pine shavings.
Hello, do you mind if I poop on your jeans?
Well, yes, I do.
Sorry!
They are a little camera-shy.
****WARNING****
The next series of photos are from the eggtopsy I did on the fifth egg. There is no blood, but they do show a dead baby chick. Please exit now if you will be upset by such images.
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After about 24 hours of the chick having pipped (made the first hole in the egg) but seeing no progression to zipping (extending the pip hole into a line around the egg) and seeing no movement of the beak (which was visible in the pip hole) I pulled the egg out to listen for peeping and feel for movement. I found neither.
Because I am curious and fascinated by how such things work, but also because it is possible to learn what went wrong so that it might be corrected in the future, I wanted to open the shell and see why Baby Five didn't make it.
I also wanted to see first-hand just how a chick is situated inside the shell. What was incredible to me was that as I gently used tweezers to carefully remove the shell, the chick maintained the shape of the egg. It's almost impossible to tell, but this is the head, folded very neatly and flatly sideways.
Obviously, a foot. They are so huge for such tiny creatures!
And we find the problem. This is the chick's bottom. What looks like yolk is the yolk, very clearly not absorbed properly. As the chicks develop, they slowly absorb the yolk as nourishment, right up until the day they hatch. Once they pip, they finish yolk absorption, the veins dry up and detach from the inside of the shell, and they zip, kick, and hatch. There wasn't anything I could've done to prevent this. That made me feel better. A little.
Now scroll back to the beginning and look at the fuzzy-butts that did make it. I'll go look at them in person and give 'em a little scritch from all of you.
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