Has my hatching chick died?please help :(

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Hi all,i'm new to this forum and would really appreciate some advice.We had one of our hens go broody so we decided to get her to sit some fertile eggs,she did her job very well and they were due to hatch tomorrow(Wed 6th)I went to check on the hen earlier and to my horror found mother hen with a chick in her mouth and she was trying(or so it seemed)to be eating the chick that was clearly dead :( I was concerned that she would do the same to the remaining 4 eggs so i managed to get hold of an incubator and placed them in that....to my delight an hour later one of the chicks started to break out,this was at 5.10pm and for a good while we could see the chick trying to break free but now it has stopped completely and we can't hear any chirping(which we could before)has our chick died?i have read somewhere that once pipped it should only be a few minutes to an hour for the chick to be completely hatched!!I'm gutted that we have already lost one and now appears that another has died.What do you guys think,do you think this is the case?Any advice welcome.
Kind regards,
Heather.
 
Hi,give him some time piping the egg is very hard work for a chick,propobly just resting.It actually can take up to 24H to free from the egg.Do not rush and do not help as during hatching it still adjust to breathe normal air and absorbing the rest of the yolk inside shell.Check also if you have good air circulation as they need alot air during hatching,the temperature is also very important and check humidity.Good luck :-)17
 
Thanks for your reply,i do hope it is just taking a rest,i am keeping an eye on the humidity and it's around the 80 mark.Thanks for the luck,i think i'm going to need it.I'm like a mother hen myself,can't help but fret!!I have a bad feeling about this tho :(
 
Thanks for your replies,I'm gutted!!I can't believe it!! The lady who i bought the eggs off and that helped me out with the incubator breeds hundreds of chickens,she def said to keep the humidity between 70 and 80!!I feel awful now cos i'm responsible for killing the chicks :( .
 
Hi,do not blame your self,it can happend ,somtimes it is hard to know the real reason.Does your chicks in eggs died for sure as your post was indicating this?I always open the eggs just to see at what stage they died.
 
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