Absorption taking too long?

[BelovedBirds]

Well, it's a matter of personal opinion whether the weak ones should be helped. It's controversial, and I can see logic on either side, so I'm not going to judge either way. I'm choosing to help this one, but when the time comes to pick who stays and who gets eaten, it will be survival of the fittest, and this one has already failed the test. I will make sure it has a good life up until that point, but that's all I can promise.

yes, it is controversial
Ive always believed that most babies that fail to hatch on their own can become just as strong as the rest- My duck, Dougie, was an assisted hatch, she was very weak and needed lots if help- now she's even healthier than her sister. Very strong, active.
Not everyone has the same experience as me, and you are only keeping a couple from the group anyway, so it's understandable to choose the stronger chicks- just my viewpoint is all

 

[K0k0shka]

yes, it is controversial
Ive always believed that most babies that fail to hatch on their own can become just as strong as the rest- My duck, Dougie, was an assisted hatch, she was very weak and needed lots if help- now she's even healthier than her sister. Very strong, active.
Not everyone has the same experience as me, and you are only keeping a couple from the group anyway, so it's understandable to choose the stronger chicks- just my viewpoint is all

I believed the same thing until my disheartening experience from last year. I really thought if I could nurse them back to strength, they'd grow up the same as the others. Two of them were my personal favorites, too (they were all meant to be kept as pets, by the way, not eaten, so I was especially torn up when they died). I tried so hard, and the two that lived past chick-hood, looked very promising, but ended up having underlying issues (likely related to their failure to hatch). So now I'm not so sure. Seems like with some of them at least, assisting and nursing them to health just prolongs the inevitable, so what's the point. I hope your duck has a long, healthy life. Personally, I won't be taking any more chances with weak chicks, trying to get a long life out of them. It's setting myself up for potential failure and it's just too heartbreaking. For the ones I'm going to keep, I want to start from a good promising healthy start, for the best chances of success. The rest will be meat chickens, but they'll still have a much better life than commercial meat chickens, so it's still a win for them.

 

[BelovedBirds]

I believed the same thing until my disheartening experience from last year. I really thought if I could nurse them back to strength, they'd grow up the same as the others. Two of them were my personal favorites, too (they were all meant to be kept as pets, by the way, not eaten, so I was especially torn up when they died). I tried so hard, and the two that lived past chick-hood, looked very promising, but ended up having underlying issues (likely related to their failure to hatch). So now I'm not so sure. Seems like with some of them at least, assisting and nursing them to health just prolongs the inevitable, so what's the point. I hope your duck has a long, healthy life. Personally, I won't be taking any more chances with weak chicks, trying to get a long life out of them. It's setting myself up for potential failure and it's just too heartbreaking. For the ones I'm going to keep, I want to start from a good promising healthy start, for the best chances of success. The rest will be meat chickens, but they'll still have a much better life than commercial meat chickens, so it's still a win for them.

some of them just dont make it, lots do, but some have genuine health issues and fail to thrive. You tried to help them
My first hatch attempt was with quail eggs, they were badly shipped, the only one to survive to hatch date died in her shell, even if I had assisted, she wasnt ready to hatch and probably wouldnt have made it. I'll always choose to give them the benefit of the doubt, after my duck hatching experience, but I can understand the worry of then losing them after and opting for nature to take its course/not breeding from them.
I hope this little one grows well and manages to catch up with the others, regardless of her fate!

 

[K0k0shka]

I’m going to keep updating the thread with the chick’s progress, in case it’s helpful to anybody who finds the thread down the line, who has a similar issue and wonders how this played out.

It’s been about 12 hours since I pulled the chick out. For most of the day, it lay on its side barely alive, just breathing and occasionally twitching. It took a long time for the blood vessels to dry up, but there was no more bleeding. Eventually it started trying to right itself up. Right now it’s able to stand on its hocks, stretch up very tall (good head control, finally), and has even started pecking at things in the incubator and preening itself. A lot of progress! It has a buddy with curled toes that I splintered with medical tape, so the two of them outcasts are hanging out in the incubator, with an internally pipped egg, while everybody else is under the broody (at various stages of hatching).

I’m going to give the two of them some egg yolk tomorrow, for an energy boost.

 

[BelovedBirds]

I’m going to keep updating the thread with the chick’s progress, in case it’s helpful to anybody who finds the thread down the line, who has a similar issue and wonders how this played out.

It’s been about 12 hours since I pulled the chick out. For most of the day, it lay on its side barely alive, just breathing and occasionally twitching. It took a long time for the blood vessels to dry up, but there was no more bleeding. Eventually it started trying to right itself up. Right now it’s able to stand on its hocks, stretch up very tall (good head control, finally), and has even started pecking at things in the incubator and preening itself. A lot of progress! It has a buddy with curled toes that I splintered with medical tape, so the two of them outcasts are hanging out in the incubator, with an internally pipped egg, while everybody else is under the broody (at various stages of hatching).

I’m going to give the two of them some egg yolk tomorrow, for an energy boost.

View attachment 3122500

that's good, I was going to suggest some egg or perhaps electrolytes, make up for any blood loss with a little energy boost.
It's a cutie! Do keep us updated, I think that's a nice idea!

 

[K0k0shka]

Day 2: The chick is doing much better today! It can stand and walk now, and can scurry around pretty quickly! It still sleeps a lot, and I couldn't get it to eat or drink (tried raw yolk, scrambled egg, and water), but it's looking alive and making quick progress. It climbed into my hand and up my arm and tried to burrow under my sleeve, which was adorable and very encouraging, given how yesterday I wasn't sure if it was going to make it at all!

It's still in the incubator with its curly toe buddy. The internally pipped egg died before pipping externally, so now that there are no more eggs, I took all the water out of the incubator and lowered the temperature to 95. I'll keep these two chicks in there for another day, and then tomorrow night I'll try slipping them under my backup broody. Original broody's chicks are one day older and much stronger than these two, running around already, and I'm afraid that these guys won't be able to keep up. I kept a backup broody on fake eggs just in case (since the original broody wasn't doing a very good job). I hope she takes them. She has hatched and raised chicks for me before, and is a very good and attentive mom.

 

[BelovedBirds]

Day 2: The chick is doing much better today! It can stand and walk now, and can scurry around pretty quickly! It still sleeps a lot, and I couldn't get it to eat or drink (tried raw yolk, scrambled egg, and water), but it's looking alive and making quick progress. It climbed into my hand and up my arm and tried to burrow under my sleeve, which was adorable and very encouraging, given how yesterday I wasn't sure if it was going to make it at all!

It's still in the incubator with its curly toe buddy. The internally pipped egg died before pipping externally, so now that there are no more eggs, I took all the water out of the incubator and lowered the temperature to 95. I'll keep these two chicks in there for another day, and then tomorrow night I'll try slipping them under my backup broody. Original broody's chicks are one day older and much stronger than these two, running around already, and I'm afraid that these guys won't be able to keep up. I kept a backup broody on fake eggs just in case (since the original broody wasn't doing a very good job). I hope she takes them. She has hatched and raised chicks for me before, and is a very good and attentive mom.

View attachment 3123905

View attachment 3123907

Glad to hear it's doing well! Sounds like such a sweet baby, he's probably imprinted on you!
Have you tried dipping the tip of his beak into some water?

 

[FoodFreedomNow]

Congratulations - rooting for your little fighter!

During a hatch, I'm always on stand by to assist, using my best judgment about when a hatchling needs help. I advocate for slow, cautious, and well-informed assisting (and reading Pyxis's article multiple times).

The outcomes are usually positive, but I have had hatchlings that - despite exercising caution and ensuring vessels had dried up and yolk was absorbed as well as administering vitamin and electrolyte support - simply faded away. Some aren't meant to live, it seems, while assisting makes all the difference for others. When to assist is a judgment call, and with much experience now, intuition plays a part for me.

Hatchlings that have failed to absorb their yolks properly, have lost blood, or may have problems due to vitamin deficiencies really seem to benefit from a supplement like Poultry Nutri-Drench offered early on via soaked Q-tip touched to the side of the beak, where it can just seep in and the chick can swallow it (avoiding aspiration).

May your chick continue to grow and thrive!

 

[K0k0shka]

Update: big gains today! The assisted chick is alert and walking, running, hopping etc. normally, fixated on taking its friend's boots off, and still likes to cuddle with me. I taught its friend how to eat and drink and it caught on very quickly, but assisted chick was having none of it. I'd been taking them out of the incubator one by one, for more focused attention, but then remembered that chicks learn best from each other, so I started taking them out together, into a cardboard box, for some play time and feeding. And sure enough, duckfoot quickly taught its friend how to eat scrambled egg! Water was trickier though, I had to dip its beak a few times and it still didn't like it or go back on its own. I gave it NutriDrench every couple of hours throughout the day (hence the stained face). At one point I washed the assisted chick's butt because the dried up goop around the navel was getting in the way of it pooping. Butt was cleared and proved itself working fine after that. Both chicks looked very lively, energetic and adventurous by the end of the day, so I took duckfoot's boots off (the toes are now straight, wohoo!) and put both chicks under my backup broody after dark. I sat with them for a while to observe. She seemed to accept them - talked to them in her soft motherly voice and raked some bedding towards herself for a comfier nest. Let's hope everybody is alive and well by morning!

Here are the two buddies:

And here you can see just how alive the assisted chick looks! Such improvement over just two short days:

 

[BelovedBirds]

Update: big gains today! The assisted chick is alert and walking, running, hopping etc. normally, fixated on taking its friend's boots off, and still likes to cuddle with me. I taught its friend how to eat and drink and it caught on very quickly, but assisted chick was having none of it. I'd been taking them out of the incubator one by one, for more focused attention, but then remembered that chicks learn best from each other, so I started taking them out together, into a cardboard box, for some play time and feeding. And sure enough, duckfoot quickly taught its friend how to eat scrambled egg! Water was trickier though, I had to dip its beak a few times and it still didn't like it or go back on its own. I gave it NutriDrench every couple of hours throughout the day (hence the stained face). At one point I washed the assisted chick's butt because the dried up goop around the navel was getting in the way of it pooping. Butt was cleared and proved itself working fine after that. Both chicks looked very lively, energetic and adventurous by the end of the day, so I took duckfoot's boots off (the toes are now straight, wohoo!) and put both chicks under my backup broody after dark. I sat with them for a while to observe. She seemed to accept them - talked to them in her soft motherly voice and raked some bedding towards herself for a comfier nest. Let's hope everybody is alive and well by morning!

Here are the two buddies:

View attachment 3125146
View attachment 3125148
View attachment 3125149


And here you can see just how alive the assisted chick looks! Such improvement over just two short days:

that's awesome news! Such beautiful babies, I'd be obsessed with them