External pip for 24 hours, should we intervene?

[silversealilies]

First time duck hatcher here! We've hatched chickens, but never ducks - not sure what to do here. We were incubating 6 eggs, 4 hatched between last night and now (about a 20-hour period), one isn't showing any signs of viability, and one pipped yesterday, but hasn't shown any signs of movement or progress. Should we intervene? Would a duck die after external pipping? Thank you!

 

[ibarbidahl]

They can and will die after external pipping. 36 hours is the first time you'll want to check on them. 24 hours is perfectly normal in between internal pip and external pip as well as external pip to zip. If you don't see any movement candle. Look for breathing movements in the air sac. How has your humidity been? That's typically the downfall of ducklings that pip but don't zip.
Hang in there. Ducklings take much longer to hatch then chicks.

 

[ibarbidahl]

Any update?

 

[silversealilies]

Oh my goodness what an emotional ride it's been this weekend! So our little ducky never made any progress on its own. We left it until late Friday night, and by that time it'd been over 36 hours and there was no progress whatsoever.

So, we verrrrrry carefully got some tweezers and opened a little hole around the pip, and could see the little duck's beak, and it was moving. So, we took a bit more shell away, and there were still blood vessels around, so we put it back in the incubator and hoped nature would do its thing.

Well, Saturday morning came around and nothing—no progress at all, duck was hardly moving. So, we thought it was probably time to intervene, it'd either die in the shell or we could take a chance and get it out.

We started to peel back the shell, and the duck was completely shrink wrapped and the shell was like concrete! No wonder there wasn't any progress. We took the top of the shell off, and then noticed the yolk hadn't been absorbed yet! :-( We luckily didn't break the umbilical, and the duck was hardly moving, so we put it back in the incubator with the bottom half of the shell/yolk and hoped for the best.

Long story short, here's little ducky today, about 48 hours later, having a nap with big brothers and sisters! The duck is an absolute tiny runt, but is doing really well, eating and drinking and getting healthier every hour! So happy!

 

[ibarbidahl]

Whoot! So glad for a happy outcome. Yes hatching is difficult for them, and us! Beautiful babies!

 

[TomCahalan]

Glad it worked out. What was the humidity level, both during the bulk of incubation, and during lockdown?

 

[HalfWayUpAMountain]

Well done on the successful (and stressfull !) intervention !

 

[Loopeend]

allthough it is commonly "not allowed!!!" I help them all..

It's a bit like.. over here if you are human female; getting a sedation while in labour or a c-section.. oh no!! Shame! Nature should do it's thing, and hurt you must, you harlot, feel the pain allthough we can make it easier and other countries like U.S. are more laid-back.. sigh

And those babies can turn out strong.

Like duck-babies. When I first hatched ducks; one pipped; and was screaming the whole time and could not get out. The horrible screams for help kept me up at night (we had no other option at that moment to put the hatching chamber next to our bed). We did nothing because we read here "you should never help!!!". "you will go to hell if you ever help a duck to get out of an egg because it is not natures way!!!". it died after 27 hours of screaming. Could have saved it. Since it was healthy; but the shell too hard. Nothing wrong with the duckling. My guts said; help it. But people on this forum that helping it is a big faux-pas..

I help them all. Not even with tweezers. Just once in several hours chip something off they were busy with to chip off. Just help a little. And they ALL turned out fine strong ducks. If they pip they are ready to come out. If they are not okay; they can not pip. And I even had ones that managed to pip; while their belly was still merged with the yoke.. their belly was yoke.. did not help them even.. and it just grew normal in 2 days.. became normal ducks.

This "you can never help" is patrichial old male-cow-doodoo. And it should stop.

human or duck; if you are born with help does not mean you can't become strong and be an good asset to the DNA-pool.. or whatever horse-manure people use to force ducklings/human-mothers to have pain for..nothing.

 

[HalfWayUpAMountain]

I support the informed choice - people and people helping ducks.

The most important thing is to not do any harm in our bid to help !

At the end of the day, we can only do our best with what we know and what we have.

Its our personal responsibility to be as informed as possible, to think for ourselves and take responsibility for what we do or don't do.