April Hatch-Along!!!!!!! Whos with me?????

[hfchristy]

I woke up this morning to much less progress than I had hoped - a full 24 hours after noticing the pips, I had one egg with TWO pips, and one that if I really squinted at it, I could almost convince myself that the pip was a little bit open.
Discouraging.

Two hours later... the one I had been squinting at had completely zipped, and immediately began running around the eggs barking orders at them to GET MOVING. Holy moly. A little fluffy Richard Simmons, he is.

Current count is three of the five bantams that made it to lockdown. One more started zipping around 3:30, but doesn't seem to be trying very hard. Pretty sure the last one is dead, but then, I thought that when I candled it on Day 7, but figured that since I didn't know what I was doing, I'd recandle on Day 9 before throwing anything out and he wasn't so dead after all.

Now for Lockdown Part 2... Welsh Harlequin & Pekin.

Christy

 

[hfchristy]

Sadly, number 4 didn't make it. It was still trying while we were cleaning up the kitchen, then I went back in to check one last time before bed, and it wasn't moving, even when it got kicked around. Looked like maybe it had its beak through, then got rolled and had its weight shift to a position where it couldn't pull the beak back in? Does that happen? Is there any way to prevent that?
There were only three ducklings in there and it was a madhouse. There are 20 eggs in the batch starting lockdown tonight. If there's even the same crappy hatch rate that I had with this first group, that's still a crazy rugby scrum for such a little space. I feel really bad for the slower eggs!

Or, I suppose, it could have just been too weak. It *was* taking a long time for each little bit of progress. It was such a lovely little thing, though, what I could see of it through the crack...

Of the other three, there is one whose eyes I haven't seen yet. Can't tell whether they're stuck shut, or if it's a birth defect. Wait and see? Or try dampening them sooner rather than later?

Christy

 

[Goin Quackrrs]

Sadly, number 4 didn't make it. It was still trying while we were cleaning up the kitchen, then I went back in to check one last time before bed, and it wasn't moving, even when it got kicked around. Looked like maybe it had its beak through, then got rolled and had its weight shift to a position where it couldn't pull the beak back in? Does that happen? Is there any way to prevent that?
There were only three ducklings in there and it was a madhouse. There are 20 eggs in the batch starting lockdown tonight. If there's even the same crappy hatch rate that I had with this first group, that's still a crazy rugby scrum for such a little space. I feel really bad for the slower eggs!

Or, I suppose, it could have just been too weak. It *was* taking a long time for each little bit of progress. It was such a lovely little thing, though, what I could see of it through the crack...

Of the other three, there is one whose eyes I haven't seen yet. Can't tell whether they're stuck shut, or if it's a birth defect. Wait and see? Or try dampening them sooner rather than later?

Christy

I usually dampen the eyelids around 12-24 hours after hatch. Let the little one rest a while first.

Have you ever watched Metzer's Hatch Cam? It's like duck egg soccer in there the last few hours before they shut off the cam to take the ducklings out.

 

[hfchristy]

3 duckies, 3 pairs of eyeballs. Everyone seems pretty healthy.


Anyone here know anything about Australian Spotted ducks? I was expecting them to all look like the one in the center. Wondering whether these are normal color variations, or if there's perhaps a bit of Swedish in them...
IF they did have a black/blue Swedish dad, would that be likely to provide any sort of sex-linked coloring? And would bantam mom + standard dad = medium sized offspring? Or does one parent's gene's prevail?

Feeling even more bummed about the duckling that died mid-zip if only one of the three I have is the breed I was hoping for. Though, at least now I don't need to worry about telling them apart!

Christy

 

[zekii]

Day 26 for me and my 14 welsh harlequins, I noticed 8 external pipps last tonight, nothing since ... yikes!!!
I'll try an be patient....keeping my humidity as high as I can ...

 

[mominoz]

Well, I got two healthy runners, one grey and one may be WHITE! I shout because it's parents are Penciled runners, no white ducks at all! I see no evidence of markings and Penciled have their markings at birth. There is a possible faint darkening on one eye , but that could be sticky feather goo. I moved them, because the hatcher is too full and they were pecking on the one who was weak. I finally took out the weak one I helped get out (the hookbill) after his long attempt to hatch and he was sticky and not walking, I immersed him in warm water to get goo off and put him in brooder with other two. He died this morning . I have two that were pipped over 24 hours and not making progress and seemed to be shrinkwrapping so I wrapped them in wet towels and decapped the end, and have set them back down. I have one externally pipped, but think is dead in shell, no sounds or movement this morning... Hatcher is starting to smell, so I candeled and think I have lots of dead in shell. I believe I incubated too low a temp humidity ( I do have some under my mini ducks, like 9 or 10 ,m they seem to do it better. )

I had tried to fill resevoir as Hovabator said and set the incubator full, and it kept a pretty constant 99-100 ,and a 42-46% humidity, until day 24, then upped to 75-80%/.I had one power out, which we got generator running for , and one 'deplug' incident, both dropping temp to 95. No spikes over 100. (which I had last year.)Fertility was probably 80-90% when set. Mostly runners and Hookbills (stored , non turning , in crawlspace for up to a week)..... I have 8 Runner/and Hookbill eggs in the other incubator too (fresh, not stored), and raised temp a bit to 100+ will have to move hygrometer to check humidity after filling main resevoir. I moved them when the others started to hatch as I am afraid they might get contaminated or too high humidity.
I didn't wash or mist this time or cool down as regularly either.....guess I need to put big notes on the door with a checklist!!

 

[hfchristy]

Day 25 for my Welsh Harlequins & Pekins, and one of each has hatched! So far seem ready, too.
They were supposed to be 5 days behind the bantams and ended up only one day apart. Go figure.
These two were part of a group of 5 eggs that seemed like they were dehydrating much faster than the others, so a couple of days ago when I had to open the hatcher to add extra wicking material to cope with chronically low humidity, I popped them in with the bantams, figuring that by day 22ish turning was probably less essential than not losing much more moisture.

I'm wondering now whether they had bigger air cells because they were somehow "ahead" of the others, or if they were just spurred on by all of the commotion of yesterday's hatch. When I took the hatchlings out last night to move to the brooder, there was at least one egg that sounded seriously freaked out to be left alone!

None of the eggs in the other incubator have even pipped yet, as far as I can tell.

Christy

 

[mominoz]

fchristy, ( i think) We seem to be having similiar luck. I have 2 healthy babies so far, the one that took the longest and I finally helped died , I have 2 others that pipped near top too, and didn't make much progress for 36 hours, so I finally capped the tops this morning and wrapped in warm wet towels. They rested, one was really trying to get out, but his feet and beak were out and nothing to push on it seemed, so i took a bit of the membrane off,it seemed really tough,no wonder they can't get out.... i also had one die after external pipping, a nice fully developed runner... it's almost as if the ducklings are 'too big' for the eggs ... i changed some variables, and set another 4 eggs with the other batch this morning. i am keeping notes on a cards, so see what happens. The eggs i set today were also bigger hookbill eggs, so i wonder if i set 'weaker eggs' the first time.it is their first year.

 

[thepregnantgod]

I'm posting late from Florida.

I have 80 Muscovies ducklings!

My first hatch was a communal nest - 36 survived of 41 (born 15 April). I then had a rescued nest that I had to incubate (stupid raccoon) of which 10 survived (born via emergency E-section because the shell was too hard - I picked them out individually on 19 April).

A third nest hatched on 8 May.

The fourth nest hatched today.

Total is now 79! I'll post pics later.

I have two more nests - one will hatch next week.

I'm not sure what to do with all these ducks. But they're fun right now!

 

[zekii]

I had two welsh harlequins hatch this evening day 26, other eggs of pips but no further activity.
Hopefully the rest will shortly. Going to get a little crowded in the incubator as more hatch, so I'll probably
remove some empty shells & ducklings tomorrow evening. Will post some pictures shortly.