Swedish Duckling
Hatched 4/26/09!
4/26/09 Day 28Hatched 4/26/09!
Around 12 this morning I decided to give one last attempt to helping the little guy out. I peeled away no more than 1/2 inch of shell and membrane before I had it going crazy and pushing more than I've ever seen before. It seemed to help if I talked to it. Within a minute, maybe two nearly his entire body was out. All of this was happening in my hands. I placed it gently, shell and all back in the incubator to rest.
/4/25/09 Day 27
This afternoon the unpipped egg didn't show any sign life so I candled it to find that there was no movement and the veining was no longer red. I had a bad feeling about this one so I pipped it, waited several hours and began to zip it. The duckling was obviously dead so i decided to investigate why. It turns out it had a skull deformity. It appeared as if it's brain was protruding. 25% of crested ducks die before hatching due to skull deformities. It's still really sad for it to make it this far then just die. The pipped egg has made NO progress but continues to move around and peep. At around 9 I decided to help it out by starting to peel away the shell but there was a tiny bit of blood so I stopped and am letting it rest in the incubator. I also wet the membrane and wrapped it in a damp washcloth, hoping that it'll make some progress on it's own...
4/24/09 Day 26
Only 2 days to go! A couple weeks ago the seb egg started showing signs of rotting so I had to toss it. This morning I heard cheeping and one of the little duck eggs has a dent in it.
3/29/09 Day 0
I got the crested swedish eggs I ordered off ebay (sjbirds) in the mail yesterday. Today I was out so I set two in the incubator around 9pm with the sebastopol egg.
