Baby Parrot Hatching : Assisting with Problem Hatches [Video]

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The unfortunate reality is that a percentage of fully developed chicks will fail to hatch. Saving some of these is possible if one learns through candling experience, when a chick is in trouble and develops the skills to go into the egg and intervene in the proper way. The following video is the hatch assist of a Yellow-fronted Amazon in trouble at the end of the incubation process. Without proper and timely intervention, the bird would have expired before hatching. I shot this video as well as a few others in 1992, while standing behind and viewing through a full sized video camera on a tri-pod. Hence, it was required, for documentary reasons, to hold the chick suspended when freeing it from the eggshell. Despite the demonstration in the video, I strongly recommended working on a flat surface for the final procedures. The proper method of pulling a chick from the egg is here.