Duckling hatching - in lockdown

The candling pics do show good blood vessels, but development is way behind. It should be much more full (dark) than that. I’m afraid your temperature has been too low.

Is that a Brinsea Mini? Those are usually quite accurate, but something is definitely off. Do the other eggs look that way? Candle that one again tomorrow and also check out another egg to compare.
 
The candling pics do show good blood vessels, but development is way behind. It should be much more full (dark) than that. I’m afraid your temperature has been too low.

Is that a Brinsea Mini? Those are usually quite accurate, but something is definitely off. Do the other eggs look that way? Candle that one again tomorrow and also check out another egg to compare.

Thank you for your reply. Oh dear that's sad. Yes it is a Brinsea. First time we've used it, have temp set at 38 and feels warm but maybe we should've had an external thermometer to double check the settings?

My husband candled another one this morning and said apart from the air sac the whole egg looked dark so sounds like much better duckling growth in that one. Didn't really want to disturb them all in lockdown but do you think I should candle them all tonight to get a good look?

What would you do with the egg above? Give it more time in case it suddenly develops or is it no hope?

Thank you so much!
 
Thank you for your reply. Oh dear that's sad. Yes it is a Brinsea. First time we've used it, have temp set at 38 and feels warm but maybe we should've had an external thermometer to double check the settings?

My husband candled another one this morning and said apart from the air sac the whole egg looked dark so sounds like much better duckling growth in that one. Didn't really want to disturb them all in lockdown but do you think I should candle them all tonight to get a good look?

What would you do with the egg above? Give it more time in case it suddenly develops or is it no hope?

Thank you so much!

Glad that the other egg looked more like it should. Its fine to leave the one in the pictures in there, just in case, but I suspect it is dying or probably will before the hatch is finished. :(

And yes, an external thermometer is always a good idea, one tested for accuracy. I love Brinsea products, but even they can be inaccurate out of the box.

If you still don't see pips by this evening, you could check each egg individually. Or just keep waiting is fine too! If you decide to do it, just open the lid quickly, pull out one egg at a time, and replace the lid. It will release a little humidity, but will recover very quickly.
I see your eggs are sitting with the air cell toward the outside, try candling thru the window before you open the lid. We try not to open incubators too much late in the process, but if you don't have any pips yet, there is no real danger. (just don't drop the egg! lol)

If you shine the light just right from outside the window, you can sometimes see the air cell. At this point, you are looking at least for "drawdown" as the baby gets into hatching position, the air cell draws down toward the floor and more into the fat end, and gets kinda out of shape, like the pic below. This happens shortly before internal pips. If any are internally pipped you might see a pointy shape inside the air space, which would be a beak broken thru membrane into the air cell.
WP_20180330_21_26_50_Pro.jpg
 
Glad that the other egg looked more like it should. Its fine to leave the one in the pictures in there, just in case, but I suspect it is dying or probably will before the hatch is finished. :(

And yes, an external thermometer is always a good idea, one tested for accuracy. I love Brinsea products, but even they can be inaccurate out of the box.

If you still don't see pips by this evening, you could check each egg individually. Or just keep waiting is fine too! If you decide to do it, just open the lid quickly, pull out one egg at a time, and replace the lid. It will release a little humidity, but will recover very quickly.
I see your eggs are sitting with the air cell toward the outside, try candling thru the window before you open the lid. We try not to open incubators too much late in the process, but if you don't have any pips yet, there is no real danger. (just don't drop the egg! lol)

If you shine the light just right from outside the window, you can sometimes see the air cell. At this point, you are looking at least for "drawdown" as the baby gets into hatching position, the air cell draws down toward the floor and more into the fat end, and gets kinda out of shape, like the pic below. This happens shortly before internal pips. If any are internally pipped you might see a pointy shape inside the air space, which would be a beak broken thru membrane into the air cell.
View attachment 1751582

Thank you so much, that is so helpful!

We candled the others through the incubator last night, all of them had air sacs at fatvend but they were mostly pointing up (like in pic below). Will have another look for pips tonight.

My husband just admitted that yesterday he knocked the humidity tubing out of the water bottle by mistake so they only had 28% humidity from 8am to 5pm when he realised (ie right at start of lockdown). Is that a total disaster? Hoping the other 5 are made of tough stuff!!!

IMG_20190424_235042.jpg
 

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