Can you hold my hand - trying to hatch a peking duck

[ProudMom]

Hi Everyone. First timer here (with hatching). We have incubated a Peking duck egg. I don't know exactly how many days it has been, but I know we're in the final hours. The duckling pipped the air sac early yesterday (or during the night before). We can sometimes hear chirping. It made a small external pip shortly before that. Yesterday early evening, it continured to knock off some shell and pipped the external membrane. So it is definitely getting air. Since then, the egg sometimes rocks a little or we hear some chirping, but it's been pretty quiet. How long do we allow this rest phase before we worry? Also, we have water droplets on the incubater glass, but I do not have a humidity gage. Is there too much humidity? Please advise. Thank you.

 

[subhanalah]

Open the incubator to remove some moisture. Condensation can drown the hatching duck. I hope you can get some more duck friends for it, if it hatches out okay.

 

[ProudMom]

Thank you so much for your response, subhanalah. My daughter and I just wiped away the condensation. We had sponges in the incubator and took them out as well. There is still water below the grill. The duck was chirping quite a bit and we can see him moving in the air sac. Where he pipped the shell, we have noticed that the membrane seems to be sort of falling inward. Is this a problem? BTW, this little duckie won't be alone. We already have 2 Peking ducks. We had 3, but one was killed by a fox. We were completely heartbroken, and the kids wanted to incubate an egg fertilized by him. There were only 2 fertile eggs and 1 did not develop. That's why we are only incubating 1.

 

[subhanalah]

Ducks take their sweet time hatching. They have to make sure every piece of fuzz is just right before they make their grand appearance! This is probably the hardest part of the whole thing...waiting and hoping they will be okay!

 

[ProudMom]

I do hope he/she is okay. Thank you so much. Any other advice would be so appreciated.