Yesterday we started to get more worried about the second egg. It had started to pip the shell the day we first warmed them up but had not really moved on much since, and the tapping was getting quieter. The chick had made a small hole in the shell but only in one place and you could see it moving but not very much. At midnight we decided we had to check it out. You have to be really careful doing this and re-read the relevant section in a useful book I have. with the egg on a heat pad covered with kitchen towel and tweezers sterilised cotton buds and sterile water at the ready Rich took charge of the tweezers and started peeling back some shell from the hole the chick had made. it was soon very obvious that the chick would not have got out on its own ...so we had made the right decision. The membrane had dried out and looked like thin white paper stuck all over the chicks head with just the tip of a beak poking out through a tare, the chick could not actually move at all. I dabbed the warm sterile water on the membrane while Rich broak back more of the shell very carefully with the tweezers then tried to remove the membrane this was real slow going and you have to be really careful if you rupture any of the blood vessels they start to bleed....! We put the egg back in the brooder for a while to allow it to warm up again and for the water to soften up the membrane. Rich wasn't confident working with the membrane so i did it and he passed me cotton buds. using wet cotton buds i gradually and carefully uncovered the chicks head and dampened the edge of the shell.... seemed to take ages.... eventually the chick got his head out and started to unwrap himself.... but he was still stuck down his back so i gently used a cotton bud to dampen inside the shell. There was no yolk sack but there was quite a lot of what looked like poop in the shell after a few minutes of wriggling he flopped out of the shell but started bleeding from his naval..... not badly i just used a dry cotton bud and held it there for about a minute and it stopped. He is a lot weaker than the 1st one i think he might have been struggling for a while. I knew the humidity wasn't as high as it should have been, which probably caused the drying out and sticking of the membrane. I did have a glass of water in there but i have now blocked off more of the ventilation and added a bigger tub of water. we still have 2 more eggs that look good for hatching in maybe a few days and 2 more that are not looking so good.
After a cup of tea and a rest I managed to feed them both but it is really hard feeding a chick soooo small the 1st meeper has got the hang of it well now and you can see his crop filling up he jumps up and down n flaps his wings.... looks so funny makes me laugh every time despite only having about 7 hours sleep in 3 days. The 2nd meeper is way more hard you have to have the formula really runny which is of course then not so nutritious and it has to be the right temperature. I use a 1ml syringe and it cools down really quick so have to keep warming it up in hot water, then I check the temp on my wrist like with a baby bottle. Today the 2nd meeper has had a few good feeds but hes still looking weak. I didn't take pics last night I was to concerned about the chick but I got a couple today.
This is the second meeper a while after his struggle to escape the egg having just had his second feed
To the right both meepers tonight cuddling up to the remaining eggs please excuse the poop
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