First time broody hen daddy

[N Good]

Today we had 5 of the 7 remaining eggs hatch!! We'll see if any more hatch but for now she seems to be doing good with the little ones

 

[Miss Lydia]

Of course pics when you can.

Congrats!!

 

[N Good]

First time Miss Ruby (she ended up with that name so we could stop referring to her as "the broody duck" or "Miss Broody") came off the nest since the hatch. 6 of the remaining 7 eggs hatched, I don't see the 7th anywhere so not sure what happened to it but I'm not messing with the ducklings or moving the next to try to figure it out just yet. Overall 6 out of 9 eggs hatching seems pretty good, still not exactly sure why she at two eggs but thinking there was probably something wrong with them.

 

[KimberBee]

Today we had 5 of the 7 remaining eggs hatch!! We'll see if any more hatch but for now she seems to be doing good with the little ones

Congratulations

 

[Miss Lydia]

They are beautiful! I know my Muscovy will eat eggs if bad I think it maybe to discourage preds. Because of smell.

 

[N Good]

Help! The seventh egg is peeping! But she has completely abandoned the nest (she's hanging out with her 6 ducklings, I guess gave up on the 7th or failed to notice it was hatching). Since she's not on the nest it got to dry (not enough humidity). The shell is partially off, the duckling has externally pipped, but the membrane is drying on. When should I intervene?
For some more context, she had pushed all the broken egg shells out of the nest and pushed this egg out with them, I'm guessing she gave up and figured this egg was bad? Or had broken of her "broodiness" and moved on to "mothering instincts"? Not sure, but she doesn't seem interested. Not sure when to intervene...

 

[Miss Lydia]

Do you have any vaseline? you can cover the membrane with some to keep it from drying out. Just don't get it on his face.

@DuckyDonna
@shawluvsbirds

 

[DuckyDonna]

I'd say now would be a good time! Do the vaseline on the membrane. If you don't have that you can use coconut oil.

Do you have a box or some place where you can get heat concentrated in it? Maybe a styrofoam cooler? Even a small box you could put a light in it for heat and put a towel over the top to hold the heat in. 97-99°.

You need humidity which could be a shallow bowl of water in the box. The more surface area the water has the higher the humidity will get. It should be at least 70%. Meaning not a tall glass but a wide shallow bowl of water.

It sounds like it's ready to hatch so all this won't be a long-term thing. If you can see her bill that's good which means she can breathe. Keep us posted.

 

[DuckyDonna]

If you see veins or the yolk leave her alone. She will need to absorb all that before she breaks out of the shell. When you put the vaseline or oil on the membrane they will be obvious. You don't want to get any bleeding started by picking at it.

 

[N Good]

Thank you all for the advice! We do have an incubator and hatched out four ducklings about a month ago. I should have just grabbed it out of the next and brought it inside right away, instead I rolled it back into the nest and came inside to look some things up and get supplies. By the time I got back out she was back sitting on the nest. I'm still trying to decide how long to let nature have its way and when to intervene. Something definitely went wrong along the way, whether she rolled the egg out of the nest at some point or maybe accidentally stepped on it. One whole side the shell is missing and the membrane is exposed, but its not from the chick zipping. I'm a little afraid what I might find if/when I open the thing up. But for now she's back on the nest so I'm not sure how long to wait before I try to make her get off to check again.