Egg Emergency! *update* all died :(

[obsidianembrace]

Today is day 28 of my call hen, Bonnie, sitting on a clutch of ten eggs. Since the 26th, though, she's hardly been sitting on them at all and my drake, Clyde pays much more attention to them than she does. About an hour ago I went out and found Clyde picking at one of the eggs until there was a small hole in it.

There was blood (the placenta, we think) coming out of the hole. So we brought it inside and put it in a bowl to show my mom later. We thought it was dead. So when she got home we wanted to know if there was a duckling in there at all. So she picked off some of the shell, cut open the membrane and we were looking at the 'dead' duckling when it opened its mouth!!! He's alive! What in the world do we do? I don't know if there's even a chance that he'll live or if he's as good as dead.

We put him in a box (still mostly in his egg) with a heating pad on low and covered it so it's dark-ish in there. I don't know what else to do but wait? Every few seconds he opens his mouth like he's gasping for air. Do we just wait until he either dies or comes out?

None of the other 9 eggs outside are pipping (?) so we don't know what to do. We locked Bonnie in there to encourage her to sit on them maybe and locked Clyde out so he doesn't pick at any more.

Do ducks help the babies out? I'm pretty sure they don't.

We're kind of in shock here, this is our first batch of eggs. Please help!

Pictures coming in a moment if you feel you need them. I have to upload them to photobucket.

Help?!?

 

[Wifezilla]

There is still a chance the little guy might make it. How is the humidity? It needs to be humid to hatch.

even though it is day 28, it can take a day or two for them to completely hatch.

 

[obsidianembrace]

Egg right after Clyde picked at it.



The half opened egg. You can see his bill pointing up and to the right out of the membrane.

 

[Wifezilla]

Yea the yolk wasn't totally absorbed yet. It looks nasty but not necessarily fatal.

 

[mrslb333]

Where there's life there's hope. Wrap the remainder of the shell in a warm moist cloth so the rest of the membrane doesn't dry out. It could take a while for the duck to hatch completely as it may not have been totally ready for the world and may still need time to absorb the yolk etc.
Do you have an incubator you could use? I t should really be kept at a constant temp around 99.5 f if not try and keep the box as warm as possible maybe try hooking up a lamp for heat.
I had one that had similar issues it took 3 days to hatch completely. I also gave sugar water in small amounts after 12 hours to keep the little one going.
Hope all goes well

 

[obsidianembrace]

We have him in a storage tub with a warm humidifier and the humidity and temp is getting higher. We can still see him breathing.

What should we do with the rest of the eggs outside? Is he going to break them too?

 

[katharinad]

Ok, first don't panic. It's breathing that is good. I bet the egg was moving or the duckling was peeping inside of the egg and the drake was just stupid. You need to keep him away from the other eggs. Having a plastic tub you can keep it warm and moist in is good. I don't know if you can read the humidity, if not no big deal. Just get some towels or cloth strips and drape them over the walls so they will wick up water that will get it about right. Cover the thing so it stays moist inside, but leave a little bit space for air to get into it. The temps needs to be 99, and not go over 100. It may take a little bit to get it stabilized. Once stabilized you can assess the situation and perhaps move the other eggs too. The duckling may need up to 48 hours to get out of it. So don't push it, but check every 6 hours. You may remove dry shell as long as there is no bleeding. You may also experience that the membrane wraps tightly around the duck. That is not good so you may use a tooth pick and peel it back a little, again stop if you see blood. Wrap it with a wet towel to keep it the membrane moist. Leave the duckling for at least 6 hours in the box once the duck it out of the egg. It may need longer, if it is exhausted. You it is ready once it starts moving around. This allows the duck to dry off. After that you will need a brooder for it. This can be a tub with a regular 90 watt light bulb hanging 2 feet over it. The temp under the light needs to be 95 degrees. You may reduce the wattage as the duck moves more and more away from the heat.

 

[GrumpyOldMan]

Keep it warm and humid and I’ll bet It’ll be ok. When I was a kid and dumber than I am now, I think. I opened up a chicken egg about a week early. Literally cracked and peeled it. Dad beat my but… then put the chick in a damp cloth, hung a 100 watt shielded light over it and kept checking the temp and adjusting the distance of the light so it didn’t fry the little critters brain but kept it warm. It grew up to be a nice bantam hen. Good luck!

Edited to add; do what katharinad said.

 

[obsidianembrace]

Okay, we made the following adjustments. We took the large chucks of shell off of the egg and there wasn't anymore blood. But the duck isn't moving around anymore. It got pretty wet inside the tub (we had it cracked, but it was still wet) but we put towels over the sides like katharinad suggested. We also pulled the inner membrane off of his face, it wasn't really tight.

We're thinking that he's probably dead...

 

[obsidianembrace]

Judging by where this egg is at, what do you think about the eggs outside? Do you think they'll hatch soon? What do we do with Bonnie seemingly uninterested and Clyde attacking them? My mom doesn't think it's a good idea to bring them in because we can't stabilize the bucket and that we'll cook them. But Bonnie isn't sitting on them outside. I went out and touched them and they actually felt warm to the touch.

What do you think?