A hatchling is the second stage in a dragon's life cycle. They can only be acquired by successfully hatching an egg, finding them on the Abandoned Page or having one traded to you.
Just like its egg stage, if a hatchling receives too many views in a short amount of time, it will become sick, and will die if you do nothing about it. This sickness can be cured by hiding the hatchling for a specific period of time. Usually, 24 hours is recommended, although shorter healing times have been reported.
When it is near maturing into an Adult, it will become a Mature Hatchling, but this will not reset its death timer. A hatchling becomes a Mature Hatchling when the death timer falls to around 5 days. Hatchlings may be frozen before or after growing into a Mature Hatchling. If frozen before, they will remain as a standard Hatchling on the user's scroll- in the past, this was not the case and the hatchlings would mature despite being frozen.
Whilst growing up, hatchlings can be named, abandoned, traded and killed but cannot be given a description unless frozen or allowed to grow up into an adult. If a hatchling is named, it cannot be abandoned or traded anymore. Likewise, whilst still growing, hatchlings cannot be released- they must be frozen first in order to do so.