First time duck incubation needing assistance

[chakachim]

Hello,

My wife and I have been incubating some duck eggs and have had our first little fella PIP through the shell. However, we're concerned as the membrane is yellowish and does not appear to have been punctured yet. We struggled with high humidity the entire incubation and are worried that they might need some assistance. Could someone look at the picture and let me know what they think. Its been this way for 6-12 hours now.

 

[MGG]

Hello,

My wife and I have been incubating some duck eggs and have had our first little fella PIP through the shell. However, we're concerned as the membrane is yellowish and does not appear to have been punctured yet. We struggled with high humidity the entire incubation and are worried that they might need some assistance. Could someone look at the picture and let me know what they think. Its been this way for 6-12 hours now.View attachment 4038046

What is your humidity at currently? That membrane does look dry. I try to have it around 70% during hatching, ducks need a lot of moisture. You can mist the eggs with warm water from a spray bottle periodically if you're having a hard time keeping it high enough. As far as assisting that isn't necessary, at least not yet. Ducks should never be assisted until 24 hours at the very least, usually if I'm going to assist it's not until 36-48 hours. Ducks take forever to hatch and helping prematurely is fatal in many instances. They also very very rarely actually need help. Chicken chicks do sometimes but ducklings are much stronger and almost never have trouble. There's a lot of yolk and blood to absorb in there. Also resist the urge to open it up a bit, that makes them dry out very fast. Just leave it as is, all I'd do is get it more humid in there. Good luck!

 

[chakachim]

What is your humidity at currently? That membrane does look dry. I try to have it around 70% during hatching, ducks need a lot of moisture. You can mist the eggs with warm water from a spray bottle periodically if you're having a hard time keeping it high enough. As far as assisting that isn't necessary, at least not yet. Ducks should never be assisted until 24 hours at the very least, usually if I'm going to assist it's not until 36-48 hours. Ducks take forever to hatch and helping prematurely is fatal in many instances. They also very very rarely actually need help. Chicken chicks do sometimes but ducklings are much stronger and almost never have trouble. There's a lot of yolk and blood to absorb in there. Also resist the urge to open it up a bit, that makes them dry out very fast. Just leave it as is, all I'd do is get it more humid in there. Good luck!

 

[chakachim]

The humidity sensor is telling us that the humidity is 80% is that ok? Our incubator doesnt have vents or anything to let us control that

 

[Yardmom]

Is the membrane dry and leather like or is there a stickiness? What was the sensor for the humidity saying before lock down?

 

[chakachim]

Humidity has stayed pretty high the whole time, however, we did do daily periods where we uncovered them for 15-20 minutes and then moistened them before putting them back into incubation . The membrane looks to be dry. Like a yellowish paper

 

[Yardmom]

For future reference If humidity is to high, reduce The amount of area the water covers. In my environment that means no water in the incubator until lockdown.
Do you have an idea how the membrane became dry? Some possibilities The current membrane being dry could mean your humidity is not what the sensor is saying, or the incubator was opened for to long after the ducklings pipped.

For your current situation let the duckling hatch on its own if possible. Watch to make sure the membrane doesn't dry onto its bill. If it does moisten with cooking oil and carefully peel making sure not to peel any blood vessels.

 

[chakachim]

Just wanted to provide an update incase anyone runs into a similar issue down the road and stumbles upon this thread.

First I'll give you a little bit of a background. Our biggest mistake was using a budget amazon incubator that did not allow for adjustment of humidity. The eggs ended up having way too much humidity the entire time and going into lock down their air pockets were not nearly big enough.

On the first day of lockdown 3 of them pipped externally right away however struggled to zipper. They just sat their with their bills hanging out. After 44 hours of no progress post-pip we got nervous and started helping them following the directions posted on here. Once we got some of the shell removed we found that they were too large to even move their head around to zipper. We also found that while the shells were brittle and easy to crack the outer lining of the inner membrane was tough leather like and had a tan coloring to it. We ended up having to remove half of the shell, and outer lining then apply coconut oil liberally to the inner membrane and between the duckling and the membrane. Once they were able to get their head out their umbilical/yolk was still attached and so their lower half remained stuck to the shell for 4-6 hours before separating on its own.

We chose not to intervene with one of them that had externally pipped but not made progress as it had only been 24 hours. Sadly he passed overnight. We opened his shell to check what had gone wrong and there was fluid and no room for the little guy to move.

Of the 6: 3 required extraction, 2 zippered and hatched on their own, 1 passed.

TLDR; High humidity, small air pocket, brown tough membrane, oversized ducks.