Unfortunately I am the bearer of bad news. I followed the instructions in the article and opened up the air cell just a tiny bit to see if it had pipped. Sadly, I don't think the little guy made it. It hadn't internally pipped, which was strange because I was sure I thought I heard it chirping...
The photos of it aren't so great, it's really hard to see what's going on. I think I'll open it up enough to see if it's pipped, and then continue on if it is. Almost all of the veins looked absorbed in the candling.
In the article it says now is a good time to open up the air cell. In fact, it may be a little past that time, maybe about 20 hrs since I made the safety hole. What would you guys do? Yay or nay? I'm kind of leaning towards yay but I'm not super experienced with this.
Ruby's are pretty typey, from what I've heard. I just got home like ten minutes ago (had to run an extra errand). No progress, but I thought I heard a couple faint chirps.
I'll get home at around 4 this afternoon, but I'm getting updates from my family. So far nothing else has happened. Someone else forwarded me that article a while back when I had another problem with a chick hatching. It's really helpful, thank you.
I went with my gut and make a tiny safety hole with a screw. It took a while to get through that shell! Then I put it back in the incubator. We'll see how it looks tomorrow. Of course, I'm starting to doubt myself, but I always do when it comes to these things.
Alright, I went ahead and candled. Wasn't sure if it was an internal pip or not? It had some weird shadowing on the sides, but I don't normally candle chicks after lockdown, or ducks at all, so maybe this is normal? I didn't get a pic, but I found some on the Internet that looked similar...The...
20 ducklings!? wow! That's one skilled mama hen!
Nothing from the egg yet. I'm a little worried, but I know ducks take a while to hatch, and calls can have trouble, so I'm prepared to be patient and intervene when needed.