Duck Egg Emergency, Help...asap

[emjay]

my duck eggs started hatching on Easter Sunday. And today, the hen is doing what hens do now, teaching babies to eat etc.
She had 4 unhatched under her, one was way rotten, was green, full of liquid, gross. and she had a dead one in there, so I cleaned out her nest. I grabbed egg #3. and went to toss it, it chirped.....................ack. Now what ??
mama hen is done sitting, what do I do ????? her 2 babies are now up and very active.
Right now I have it under the heat lamp, should I put a damp warm cloth on top as well ??

I've done an emergency hatch with chicken eggs and have been successful,

 

[emjay]

anyone !!

this is what I did. I put a warm soaked facecloth on the bottom of a round tupperware dish, I put a small lid ontop of that cloth, I then put a piece of paper towel, laid the egg on that , then put a wet papertowel beside the egg , put a lid ontop of the dish with a slight gap. It's up under the heat lamp.
I don't know how close to the lamp it should be.
ducks require more humidity though right.???

 

[Frenchchickens123]

Hi, sorry to read about your little emergency, like you I have only had to deal with chickens but yes I would try to keep it very humid as I know duck eggs particularly need very high humidity, it probably wouldn't hurt to spray the egg with warm water too. It will probably be a long/stressful day or two but fingers crossed the little one gets out of the shell okay good luck

 

[Frenchchickens123]

Sorry literally just read your second post after posting mine. Sounds perfect I don't thinks there is anything more to do except wait! Good luck again and let us know if it makes it I really hope so

 

[emjay]

I hope so too.
I just buried one that had died under the mama hen, had got shrinkwrapped under her, fully formed, perfect baby, and then there was just the head of another one, must have died same way and then mama must have tried to eat the evidence to keep predators away.
the rotten egg was disgusting. I am hoping I have success.

temp should be about 99.5 , I have no way of knowing if the humidity is right, I guess one just has to keep checking, or is that too risky. for letting the humidity out,

 

[emjay]

how close to the heat lamp should it be.
I can still hear it chipping away at the shell on the inside.

when does one know to intervene, as far as if it's not making progress due to membrane being too leathering/tough?

 

[Frenchchickens123]

Is there a hole in the egg? If there is then obviously there is a risk of the membrane drying out. Do you have some way like a syringe to put more water on the towls to keep humidity up without opening the box completely? Umm with intervention I'm quite strong on not intervening. It can be hard, on my last hatch a chick pipped and was cheeping in the evening, my partner said before going to bed that it didn't seem to be doing well, I decided to leave it till the morning but it died during the night very sad and I wished I had intervened. On another occassion I did intervene and it survived but at 12 weeks old she had some serious health issues and had to be culled. It can be very hard, I assume ducks take the same amount of time to hatch as chickens so as a rule of thumb I would wait at least 36 hours to make sure the yolk sac has been absorbed as that amd the blood vessels are what poses the problem in helping. For now I would just keep trying to keep the humidity up and see how the duckling is doing in about 4/6 hours. As you probably already know a chick makes a small hole and then doesn't do anything for hours before making it bigger and getting out so for now I would just wait. I hope this is of some help I have incubated a lot of chickens but not ducks yet, I do hope to one day when my other half will let me have ducks. please keep us updated and fingers crossed

 

[Frenchchickens123]

Sorry didn't answer about heat lamp and humidity. Humidity will have to be a guess but as long as you see a bit of condensation on the box it should be okay. Do you have a thermometer? Try to put it under the heat lamp to measure the temp it again will have to be a guess but it's better than being way too hot or cold... The temp in the box with the egg maybe a bit higher than what the thermometer says as the heat will build up a bit in the box. I really hope this helps

 

[emjay]

the baby has not pipped yet, there is one teeny piece of outer egg shell missing, the only reason I know it's trying as I can see through the egg and see that the duckling has gotten some membrane torn away from the shell
I just checked on it, I did listen to the egg, I know I shouldn't be taking it out, but, I wanted to make sure that I wasn't hatching a dead baby. I can still hear it nipping away at the shell inside. this is good. I am hoping because it is in a dish above a brooder full of chicks that it will have the motivation to keep going , from hearing all the peeping.
There was condensation sitting on the egg, so I'm hoping that is good, that the humidity is good enough.
I went and checked the remaining egg in the nest, it was rotten as well, yuck.

 

[emjay]

I can still hear baby inside pecking at the shell, how long does it usually take for them to break through? I need someone to let me know that I shouldn't get anxious just yet, not like I'm not already !!