Portugal Muscovy Novice
Chirping
We had a terrible heat wave and had temperatures between 35 - 40 C before it soured to 45C for two days straight. The night time temperatures didn't go down beyond 25C. My Muscovy Ducks refused to take leave of their eggs and as you can imagine they boiled. I increased the airflow by opening all the doors but when I say it was 45C, I mean that was the temperature in the shade with a slight breeze blowing so this didn't help much at all. The eggs were already on day 35 and 25 respectively.
I managed to save 2 of the 6 eggs from duck #1 (35 days brooding) and they hatched with shrink wrapped chicks. The other 4 eggs didn't hatch and they were most definitely dead. It took hours and days to get the two out of the leathery membrane working around the little veins. Regardless they are out and I'm much much older. They seem to be doing fine albeit a bit wobbly and very week. They also haven't absorbed their egg yolks when they hatched which always points to high temps for me although that's just what I've experienced in the past, I could be wrong.
Of the 11 eggs from Duck #2 (estimated 25 days old) 6 survived are also dehydrated and I can already see the air cell is half the size of the egg and the air cell is a funny shape. Similar to when you think they have internally pipped but its actually just the silhouette or the poor baby wrapped in the membrane. They still have 5 - 10 days to go
I've had difficult hatches in my life and am by no means a novice but I've never had eggs arrive at my doorstep in this condition. They are in the incubator now at a high humidity (don't know if this is the right thing to do) and they are very active still, kicking and rolling around. They seem to be in hatch position already (which makes me believe they are closer to 5 days than 10 but this doesn't add up to what I put in my calendar). I suspect this is because of the high temperatures and the dehydration levels. I've had early hatches due to temp and humidity a few times before but I'm a bit at a loss.
Do I let nature take its course and see what happens? My thought process is that;
1) If I leave them in the incubator for the next 5 - 10 days, hopefully the little bills will break through the membrane, and externally pip at which point I will help as I think they will be very very weak.
2) or do I wait 5 - 10 days and start opening one to see the status of it and intervene as I have been doing with the other two from duck # 1.
I've read some great articles about assisted hatching on BYC and that's how I managed to save quite a few chicks (ducks and chickens) in the past but I've always known the eggs' age and they weren't as dehydrated as this when they arrived...
I managed to save 2 of the 6 eggs from duck #1 (35 days brooding) and they hatched with shrink wrapped chicks. The other 4 eggs didn't hatch and they were most definitely dead. It took hours and days to get the two out of the leathery membrane working around the little veins. Regardless they are out and I'm much much older. They seem to be doing fine albeit a bit wobbly and very week. They also haven't absorbed their egg yolks when they hatched which always points to high temps for me although that's just what I've experienced in the past, I could be wrong.
Of the 11 eggs from Duck #2 (estimated 25 days old) 6 survived are also dehydrated and I can already see the air cell is half the size of the egg and the air cell is a funny shape. Similar to when you think they have internally pipped but its actually just the silhouette or the poor baby wrapped in the membrane. They still have 5 - 10 days to go
I've had difficult hatches in my life and am by no means a novice but I've never had eggs arrive at my doorstep in this condition. They are in the incubator now at a high humidity (don't know if this is the right thing to do) and they are very active still, kicking and rolling around. They seem to be in hatch position already (which makes me believe they are closer to 5 days than 10 but this doesn't add up to what I put in my calendar). I suspect this is because of the high temperatures and the dehydration levels. I've had early hatches due to temp and humidity a few times before but I'm a bit at a loss.
Do I let nature take its course and see what happens? My thought process is that;
1) If I leave them in the incubator for the next 5 - 10 days, hopefully the little bills will break through the membrane, and externally pip at which point I will help as I think they will be very very weak.
2) or do I wait 5 - 10 days and start opening one to see the status of it and intervene as I have been doing with the other two from duck # 1.
I've read some great articles about assisted hatching on BYC and that's how I managed to save quite a few chicks (ducks and chickens) in the past but I've always known the eggs' age and they weren't as dehydrated as this when they arrived...
