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Since I just had to figure it out myself, one of my kids hatchimal egg animal thingies did not work, whereas the other one did. Just wanted to dump the fix here so that someone else with a bad xmas pressie might find their way to the solution here via google.

1. Using a sharp craft knife / scalpel, slice the egg 360 degrees around, splitting it into two halves (top and bottom). You can dip in about 3-5mm, the shell is only about 1mm thick.

2. Remove the hatchimal from the egg, turn upside down.

3. Make sure the black switch is on '1' and not '0'

4. Replace the batteries (2x AA, philips screwdriver head needed). It should roar into life.

5. Using pliers, squeeze the two grey plastic pegs together a bit so that the hatchimal can be inserted back in place more easily.

6. Using a wet ink pen, colour in the top of the pin on top of the gear in the base of the egg

7. Replace the hatchimal on top of the pin and pegs, lining up the purple plastic bit so it is facing the right way. If you cant get alignment, pick it up, look at the dot that should now be on the bottom from the wet ink on the pin, and use that as a guide to get better alignment.

8. Do whatever you can to get the damn thing to stop spinning round. Hold it upside down for ages until it turns off, then hope for the best. I ended up letting it peck part way out then just holding it in place with a clicking gear for the next step.

9. Use superglue (cyanoacrylate) on the egg - it glues fast, well and hard, to reattach the top and bottom halves.

10. Hold it upside down for 15 seconds or so until it falls asleep

11. Give back to kids and explain the emergency egg surgery, or some other such story.

Hope that helps someone else out there in Internet land with fixing their broken hatchimal or one that has got dead batteries from being hoarded for months before christmas.

Been hearing so many stories of people with atleast 1 dead hatchimal. Pretty traumatic. I heard a couple stories of hospitalised kids receiving dead ones on christmas and I honestly teared up.

I wonder what the rough % of fault or flat battery cases is.

We got it to hatch but it has been fairly low function compared to the other one. Bad toy.