Urgent!! Duck hatching questions!

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rbmagic

rbmagic

In the Brooder
Jun 16, 2016
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So I am hatching three pekin duck eggs. Today is day 30 I am starting to get worried. On day 28, at about 7pm-11pm all three ducks pipped and made a little hole. Day 29 went by and two of them made their holes little bit bigger. I though for sure they were going to hatch last night on the night of day 29. Today is day 30 and still no zipping or bigger holes or anything. My humidity stays at about 71% and temp is at 98.8F. I can see them moving and one actually peeps at me every time I go and talk. I don't know if it usually takes this long but last time I checked it takes 48 hours. It's been 36 hours and still no sign of progress on any of them. This is my first time hatching and it would really help if someone could help.
 
rbmagic said:
So I am hatching three pekin duck eggs. Today is day 30 I am starting to get worried. On day 28, at about 7pm-11pm all three ducks pipped and made a little hole. Day 29 went by and two of them made their holes little bit bigger. I though for sure they were going to hatch last night on the night of day 29. Today is day 30 and still no zipping or bigger holes or anything. My humidity stays at about 71% and temp is at 98.8F. I can see them moving and one actually peeps at me every time I go and talk. I don't know if it usually takes this long but last time I checked it takes 48 hours. It's been 36 hours and still no sign of progress on any of them. This is my first time hatching and it would really help if someone could help.
Click to expand...
Lets see if we can get @WVduckchick here to help.

Welcome to BYC @rbmagic
 
Hi! 40+ hours is not uncommon. If they are still peeping, that's a great sign! That temp may be a bit low and slowed them down a little, causing them to be a little late, but I'd just leave it and give them a few more hours.
Keep talking to them, sing to them! You can also find YouTube videos of others hatching so they can hear it. It may coax them out.

Ducks like to test our patience! :)

Good luck and keep us posted! :fl
 
While you are waiting, do you have any pics of the pipped eggs? Have they smacked the shell any more? Usually after the first pip, they will make a second, and sometimes third "bump" before they actually start breaking out and fully zipping. Have any of them done that?
 
700


There is a pic. Kinda bad quality since the outside of the incubator is kinda gross. It's kind of yellowish and looks dry in the spot that it pipped. It is still moving though the other one that has been moving the hole is on the bottom
 
So you are using a Brinsea? Awesome!

Glad they are still moving. You mean "bottom" as in the hole is near the pointy end or facing down toward the floor?

Keep an eye on the membrane. It should stay papery white. Yellowish is not bad, but it will darken as it dries out, and you don't want that to happen. If it starts looking too dry, you can pull the egg out, and wipe the membrane with a very small amount of Vaseline on your fingertip or a q-tip, just to keep the membrane moist. Bactracin or similar ointment is fine, just make sure it does NOT contain pain reliever (like any of the "caine" words -- lidocaine, etc) I just use regular Vaseline.

Did you do any misting throughout the incubation, or use the cooling feature on the incubator? No problem if you didn't, I'm just curious.
 
The one egg the hole it pipped is facing downwards. All of the pips are closer to the upper half. My dad raised ducks when he was young but tha was 30 years ago. He read that you can but wet paper towel on them for about an hour. Should the membrane be stuck on the inside of the shell? It does not really look like the membrane is stuck to the shell.
 
It depends on where the pip is, whether it should look stuck to the shell or not. If the pip came through the air cell, and then through the shell, you could be seeing into the air cell, where there would be a gap between the membrane and the shell. I hope that makes sense. If the pip was below the air cell, then the membrane should be pressed against the shell.

But remember, the air cell draws down considerably in the last few days, and unless you've opened the incubator since lockdown, you may not have seen it.

This shows how the air cell draws down. This is a chicken egg, but ducks do exactly the same. The blue line was the air cell at the first candling, then the black line later. The air cell would have been just below the black line at lockdown, but once the chick starts getting into position to hatch, the air cell draws down considerably. By looking at your picture, it appears to be through the air cell, and that's fine.
 
Oh, also meant to add that I personally don't care for the wet paper towel thing, especially with forced air incubators. I think the towel cools off at a faster rate and doesn't really help keep the egg moist anyway. But there are those who use it, so feel free to research more about it.
 

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