New duck mommy 2021
Free Ranging
Not all babies that need assistance will be weak and unhealthyOh and if if they're still in the egg you can still put the eggs on you put lay the heating pads flat put the eggs on it and then slap it over and whatever you do do not break open the shell ever they're still ingesting the yolk and also the the veins that are running through the edge of the egg and the membranes if you cut them you can make the chick lead to death and this may sound mean but if it's not strong enough to get out of its own a you helping it out it probably won't survive and I have to tell you that because everyone told me that every single time but what I did was I would take a toothpick and I would put a flashlight on it like I was candling it and I would go in the circle making holes just big enough to break through the membrane but I would go all the way around the entire egg but you have to keep the kid the flashlight up there because you have to make sure you do not put a vein or poke the baby but don't pull it out because it's still ingesting it's yolk if you try to pull it out you would most likely kill it immediately
I did as the OP did and let my new layer duck sit on eggs as well as incubated 6
Only one of her babies lived after seeing it bruised the wrong end and I had to take the egg to assist. Hope is now over a year old and never had any complications of being fully assisted
As for my 6 eggs only the two bigger of the 6 hatched themselves the other 4 needed full assistance as they were in small eggs and in wrong positions with no room to properly hatch
One I helped to soon , one I was scared to help after loosing the first and lost her too
Then I got help off here and successfully assisted the next 2 who are also over a year old and never had issues
They were out of the incubator in 4 hours running around
Often when incubating small eggs you will need to help as they can’t turn and are stuck but are perfectly healthy little ones