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Keeping chickens as pets can be a wonderful addition to your family, but like all animals, they require proper care. One important aspect of raising chickens is managing the hatching of chicks. But how involved should you be when a chick is ready to hatch?
The idea of helping a chick hatch is a topic of debate. Some believe that nature should take its course, while others feel obligated to assist.
With so many differing opinions, how do you know what the right approach is? Here’s a guide to understanding how to handle chick hatching when the time comes.
Can You Help A Chicken Hatch?
In general, the answer to whether you should help a chick hatch is no. However, this issue isn’t always black and white. While it’s typically best to let nature take its course, there are rare occasions where intervention might be necessary to give a chick a chance to survive. That said, helping a chick hatch should not be your first response.
Those who advocate for letting nature take its course are mostly correct. Assisting a chick in hatching can cause several problems:
- Leg Weakness: By breaking the shell, you do the hard work that would otherwise strengthen the chick’s legs.
- Blood Vessel Damage: You could break blood vessels in the shell that haven’t had time to shut down, which can be fatal.
- Premature Hatching: If you break the shell before the chick is ready, it is likely to die. Often, if a chick can’t hatch on its own, it’s because it is weak or unwell and not meant to survive due to natural selection.
A chick will hatch when it is ready, and a strong chick should be able to pip and break through its shell without major issues. However, there are common mistakes people make during the hatching stage that you should be aware of to avoid repeating them.
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How to Help a Chick Hatch
1) Starting The Process For The Chick
As a general rule, a chick will be ready to hatch after twenty-one days, but this doesn’t mean that if the process hasn’t started by the end of the twenty-first day, you should intervene and break the egg.
There are a couple of factors in play that can sometimes mean the chick won’t be ready for another couple of days, so whatever you do, don’t break the shell thinking you are helping. If you break the shell before the chick is ready, the chick will unfortunately die.
2) Breaking The Shell After The Pipping Has Started
The whole procedure of pipping until hatching can take up to twenty-four hours. So, whatever you do, don’t help the chick break through their shell either through impatience or a misplaced desire to help. The process just takes a long time, and for the most part, the chick will complete all stages in its own time.
If you break the shell unnecessarily, thinking the chick should be out in a few hours rather than twenty-four, this is extremely counterproductive. By doing so, you could end up causing problems for a chick that was otherwise healthy and following nature.
3) Helping A Chick Who Will Suffer In The Long Term
Okay, while this is not necessarily a mistake, it is something to be aware of. If a chick is struggling to the point where it can only get out with help, it is most likely because the chick is weak or unwell.
If you decide to help and the chick survives, you will almost certainly have a chick that needs medical help or aid for the rest of its life. This is more work and stress for you and a poor quality of life for the chick. Due to the laws of nature, that chick couldn’t get out by itself because it wasn’t strong or healthy and just wasn’t meant to survive.
Why Is It Bad To Help A Chick Hatch?
You can’t see what’s happening inside the shell, so helping a chick hatch carries significant risks and may cause more harm than good. What might look like a struggling chick could be a perfectly normal hatching process with no need for concern.
Even though the urge to help is strong, it’s usually best to let nature take its course. Assisting the chick can lead to weakened legs, as it misses out on the effort required to break the shell. Additionally, you might break blood vessels in the shell that haven’t shut down, causing the chick to bleed to death.
How to Handle a Chick Stuck in an Egg
Okay, so there may be the odd occasion when the chick is genuinely stuck in the shell. Now what? Is now the right time to help? Do the benefits potentially outweigh the risks?
If you are certain that the chick is stuck in the egg, you should consider gently helping. The dried membrane is the most common cause of a chick being stuck in the egg. The easiest and safest ways to help in this situation are either:
- Increase the humidity in the incubator to around 65-70%
- Dab the membrane gently with oil. Coconut oil is a good option, so do not use water as you run the risk of the chick drowning.
Even in this case, the intervention should be minimal, and the focus should be on increasing the moisture of the membrane so that the chick can continue to break the shell.
The hatching process is not always smooth sailing, and it can be extremely difficult to watch and wait while wanting to do anything possible to help.
Unfortunately, there will be times when the chick just isn’t healthy enough to break the shell or survive the hatching process, but since you cannot know for certain that this is the case, you are best to always opt out of helping.
Just never forget that if you decide to step in, you are now the one who could be putting the chick’s life in danger, so it is wise to be patient and let nature run its course.
Final Thoughts
You should generally not help a chick hatch, as it can harm the chick and interfere with its natural development process.
Firstly, the process of breaking out of the egg is crucial for the chick’s development, helping to build muscle strength and coordination. Secondly, premature intervention can lead to injury, as the chick’s blood vessels are connected to the egg membrane.
Additionally, hatching is a natural selection process, indicating the chick’s health and viability. Interfering can also disrupt the crucial absorption of the yolk sac, which provides essential nutrients.
Also, if a chick is too weak to break out of its shell it generally does not help it if you help it hatch. It will still be weak and may not live anyway.
Therefore, despite good intentions, aiding in hatching can do more harm than good.
