Hands on hatching and help

[RubyNala97]

Oh my goodness! I am so in love!! This little guy is imprinting already. He is so happy when he's out and with us. Otherwise he paces the brooder. I put him on the bed and he tries to jump up on me and nibbles at me and preens himself. He's going to be spoile rotten!!

Yay!  He looks like a blue ducky!  Bet he's gonna be really cute when he dries off.  That is crazy that he hatched with the detached air cell.  I thought that was an immediate death sentence to see that but now I might just leave some of them in and see what happens.

My only advice with a single duck is don't let him sleep with you.  Archie, my first hatchling that hatched 2 days before his siblings was so sad and lonesome that I let him snuggle up on my shoulder on the couch.  Before ya knew it, I had him wrapped in a towel and sleeping in the bed with me because he wouldn't quit screaming at me when I set him down.  Maybe go buy him a duck friend from the feed store cos once Archie's siblings started hatching he never squawked again.  However, my plan to do this with the noisy turkey did not work.  I bought a black spanish and a slate turkey yesterday from Murdochs and that lil Blue Palm brat squealed all night wanting to go back out with his mommy.  O, and they do like little stuffed animals too.

I guess I will just have to try the weight loss thing next time and ride out the more than desired weight losses to see what happens..  I think my runners might come a lil early.  When turning my eggs this morning I had one that I could feel wiggling around in the egg when I picked it up.  Didn't even think of it at the time, but I wish I would have candled to see if it had internally pipped.  Guess I will candle it at four when I turn them the next time.

Thank you for the advice. I'm tempted to let him sleep with me but then I know I'll never get him out of the bed!! Good luck on the eggs. I hope the all level out.

Having trouble- we have several methods. 1. Ducks 2. Little giant incubator 3. Pro series incubator . Both have the upgrade air/heat. Both have turners circulated air both. We have a male gene backwards in chicken eggs. One problem. Humidity is never stable. We have nebulizers attached to both. We have a fan and air conditioning on. We have a vaporizer going.just to stable. We just got the bigger ducks in February they had laid before but we tried them hatching both chicken and duck eggs. We haven't had much luck. I gave up on the ducks and put them in incubator at the end. We keep getting goo and rot and explosions . Room air 80 at moment.we don't want to deal with these issue on eggs ducks have nesting brooding for next hatch. Last hatch ended

How are your air cells? Do you measure them each week? And where are you getting your numbers for humidity? You can't really pick one number but rather monitor the air cells closely and adjust so that they are growing properly. Are your hygrometers calibrated?

 

[Lacrystol]

Oh, man... owls are relentless... sorry for your KC, I lost a couple to one too... what state are you in, btw? Some states do have a law about protecting your property and livestock...

I had an owl issue, but i chased right after that sucker and he ended up dropping my call. WHEW..

 

[Lacrystol]

That's good to know.

I think my bacteria came from one of two ways:

First, not being cleaned properly. I bought that Lyon bator ten days into my first batch of ducklings because my FI incubator was bouncing between 96 and 106 degrees. So when I got a hold of that bator I don't know how well the previous owner cleaned it. I sprayed it down with hydrogen peroxide and ran it with the hydrogen peroxide floating around until it dried out and then stuck the eggs in. Not sure how well that disinfected it.

Secondly, I had 4 different staggered hatches in there. My first group had tiny air sacs so I pulled the water for 2 days to grow the size of the air sac. When I put the first batch in the hatcher I put both hygrometers in my hatcher to watch it closely and stuck my water bottle back on the Lyon bator. Two days later I found that the air sacs looked huge on my eggs in the Lyon and I realized my water bottle hadn't been putting the same amount of water into the bator as it had before. So I stuck a hygrometer back in there and tried to get my humidity up to 60-65% to keep those eggs from shrinking anymore since they looked ready to hatch at 21 days. I kept adding more and more water to try to get the humidity up and ran it with 6 times the water that I had in it before I started tinkering with my humidity. I figured there were less eggs in there and they had already dried up quite a bit more than they should so I thought all the extra water I was putting in to up the humidity was due to having less moisture released from the eggs. Turns out that my hygrometer had went haywire. So by the time I got the humidity fixed the bacteria showed up in the eggs. That is probably my problem. Made it way too humid and encouraged the bacteria to take over.

Or, it could have been a combo of both.

OH MAN, that really stinks but at least you fix the problem. WOW..

 

[Lacrystol]

My first hatch was yesterday! 6 viable eggs. I lost the first chick in the shell because I never got involved early enough. The next one came by itself with no problems. Number three zipped but got stuck and I had to cut the membrane, that one is doing great! The next two I had to help with all the zipping, they are now up and walking and looking for food. The last chick I had to do everything, pip & zip, that one is standing but clearly in danger and looks like it has dried slime on it. I have been slowly trying too brush the crud off. No question; just wanted to share and say that this is my first eggs and I intervened with what seems at the moment to be pretty good success. Too bad I never got involved earlier as the one that did was the only white chick amoung 5 blacks ones.

GOOD JOB FOR A FIRST TIMER.

 

[Lacrystol]

Thanks you to all that helped me with this precious little baby. His neck has straightened out and he is up walking and really doing great. Trying to jump out of my brooder actually! He still has some gunk on him, but here's a pic

OH HOW SWEEEEETTTTTT

 

[Lacrystol]

Here's my progress so far. He managed to get a wing out but that's it. Looks like he's trying to get out. Can any duck people tell me what can I do next? Keep waiting? Start a zip? I know I can't pull him out of the egg, so I'm literally sitting on my hands.

Grab that beak and pull that head out, Look STICKY to me.. still

 

[Lacrystol]

GREAT JOB NEW DUCK MOMMY.


AMY, those pics are WAY TO adorable. lol

 

[chikadoodles]

I'm very hands on with mine. Everyone says let nature take its course, but it was I that put them in that box. I'll help as much as possible and

them much

 

[Lacrystol]

He's out!! I'm officially a call duck mommy! Not only is that so awesome but this little guy came from a shipped egg that had a totally detached air cell. I've never gotten a detached air cell to develop, let alone hatch. So lots of firsts for me with this little one! I got him half way out and then was worried sick he was stuck in the shell by the membrane but after a short rest, he pushed himself right out of the bottom of the shell all by himself! Lots of pics coming once he's dry. He's going to be a lone duckling for 2 & 1/2 weeks until my next batch of calls hatch (yeah, I can't believe I'm doing this again). So any advice for keeping a single duckling?

Yes, you're 100% right. That's basically what I did. I removed only a tiny bit more shell and that membrane and he wiggled right out the top. But stayed in the bottom for about a half hour before pushing out.

Eta: because I screwed up!

YEHHHHHH HE MADE IT....

 

[Lacrystol]

I'm trying to incubate runner ducks and am having no luck. i have some eggs that have air sacs that are too small for the age of the eggs and was wondering if any people who are successful at correcting this problem could have a look at my post about the eggs and give me some feedback or advice. https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1099126/air-sac-is-way-too-small-need-advice-please i'm pretty sure that i had my humidity too high. it's confusing on lots of the websites and reference books that i was looking at, and i think that i was using wet bulb recommendations instead of %humidity/hygrometer readings.

Yes it can get very confusing and overwelming... I'll take a look