He's still in, still chirping. I'm wetting the paper towel under the egg and moistening the membrane every hour.

I'm not sure if the yolk is all the way in yet--I can't see it at all. He's kind of curled sideways in the egg, I think. Assist hatch videos can all see the yolk clearly. I don't want to open the egg further until it becomes needed or he starts really attempting to get out. He's had a couple big pushes where his little wings and feet start going, but mostly has been chirping with slight whole-body contractions.

I've got coconut water on hand...can you give it to them before they're fully out of the egg?

Yes, in fact, you must feed him coconut water before he comes out of the egg. He needs the energy.

With Rio, he was strained. Had to take out the whole shell and he pushed himself out. Your chick is probable strained.

I just took a look at the video. It was so touching. My eyes are a little watery. Last time I saw something like that was with Rio. It was so scary.

I would remove some more of the shell until both his eyes are free. Is there membrane on his face? You should also remove that. Tell me what it he looks like after.

Took more of the shell off--I felt bad because that entailed breaking that one vein that still had blood, and now poor baby has blood on his face I wiped it off as well as I could and it barely bled.

But I finally got a good look at his yolk sac--it's nearly entirely absorbed. There's only a little bit left, like the size of half a lima bean.

I'm warm some coconut water then and give him some. I held the wet qtip by his beak for a sec to see if he was interested and he really started licking, so I guess he's thirsty.

Great. Your doing wonderful. We will have to let the chick absorb the yolk before attempting to take some more of the shell. He will draw in all the yolk by tomorrow. Then, you will keep a very close eye to see if he is trapped.

Here are a few pictures of my journey with rescuing Rio

This was him at first (he had a swollen face)



After freeing his legs from the shell.



And out of the shell



A few months ago

As you can see, he also had some blood on his process of getting out of the egg. As long as it isn't to much, it's not too bad at all. If my chick did it, so can yours.

Awww, little sweety. Hope my little guy grows up so well. I'll have to name him or her something that means "tough". There's nowhere near that much blood, so I think he's okay there.

I'm running around carefully heating things so they're just the right temp and getting everything I could possibly need prepared and my mom's laughing at me saying "I always knew you were going to be the best mother". So I feel a bit better now!

He was licking pretty madly at the coconut water. I just wiped a wet qtip one side of his beak and left a bead of moisture, which he licked up. He took 4 of those little beads before he lost interest. His skin color is still pretty pink.

He seems to be resting again. He'll do a chirp-and-jerk every so often instead of rhythmically like it was before.

It looks like I'm going to be staying up all night...and tomorrow night I was going to go to the midnight showing of Guardians of the Galaxy with a bunch of friends. I am going to be so exhausted.

Don't worry. He will be fine!

I think that chirp that your talking about is the chirp they do when they are absorbing the blood and yolk. It's bedtime for me. I'll check for updates tomorrow.

I'm just now seeing this. Susanne is in Florida and may have gone to bed already, but I think she gets up frequently during the night (can't sleep I guess) and checks the computer. You could send her a PM explaining nicely that you tried to join ICR a few days ago and didn't get accepted, and now you're having to do an assist hatch. Give a quick summary of what's happened already, and could she please help you whenever it's convenient. The worst that could happen is that she will say no or won't respond, and it's possible that she might give you her phone number so you can talk directly. Facebook is showing that she's online right now but it's not necessarily accurate.