Thirteen fluffy chicks. One egg that never opened. That's the math of u/Consistent-Roof-4685's second hatch, and it hits right in the gut for anyone who has ever watched an incubator like a hawk. You do everything right, temperature, humidity, turning, praying, and still, sometimes, a little pipped egg goes silent. The OP is honest about it: blood, no movement, a certainty that the chick is gone. Yet they left it in there, just in case. That tiny, hopeful "just in case" is the most relatable thing we've seen all week.
We know the feeling. You stare at that egg, willing it to twitch. You read every forum post about assisted hatching, about waiting longer, about miracles. And when it doesn't move, you still hesitate to throw it out. Because what if? That's not weakness, that's the heart of backyard chicken keeping. It's the same heart that makes you squeal when thirteen healthy chicks tumble out, cheeping like tiny feathered alarms. The OP gets it. They're already planning the full setup, already loving the ones that made it. That's the balance we all learn: celebrate the wins, mourn the loss, and don't let the grief swallow the joy.
If a reader came to us with this exact situation, a pipped egg with blood and no movement, we'd tell them what the OP already knows. Once the blood dries and the chick stops responding, it's almost certainly gone. Leaving it for a few hours won't hurt the live chicks, and it might give you closure. But don't blame yourself. Pipping is hard work. Sometimes the chick is positioned wrong, sometimes the membrane dries too fast, sometimes it's just bad luck. You can do everything textbook and still lose one. That's not failure, that's biology being a fickle, heartbreaking little beast.
You don't hatch fourteen eggs and get fourteen clucks. You get thirteen miracles and one mystery. And that's okay. The OP's post is a perfect reminder that the hobby isn't all adorable fuzz and egg-citing first steps. It's also the quiet moment when you bag a failed egg and wonder what went wrong. But you keep going. You clean the brooder, you set up the heat lamp, you watch those thirteen fluffballs grow. Because that's what chicken people do. We learn from the losses, we laugh at the chaos, and we never stop leaving the egg in the incubator just a little longer.