First Time Hatch! Help Please!

[BanditTheDuck]

Thanks for all the replies! Yes, I did find some great advise on the duck forum, and when I checked on the egg this morning, the pip was MUCH longer, so I guess it is finally zipping. Should I peel back the membrane? The duckling is trying to poke it's bill through, and there's no blood veins or anything in the membrane. Here's a picture from when it first pipped:



Sorry about the bad quality! The air hole was about the size of a grain of rice.
And here's a picture of the egg this morning:


You can see it's little bill! It's also chirping a few times every minute or so. So what should I do? Just leave it???

 

[Courthamilton]

How exciting! I would say since its starting to make progress on his own to let him be a while. I checked two of mine today and they've internally pipped and are chirping like crazy!!

 

[BanditTheDuck]

All right! Thanks for the advise! What temperature do you recommend? I've read many different things, and none of them seem to agree.

 

[Courthamilton]

Is yours still air or what?

 

[BanditTheDuck]

Um, well I'm actually not even using an incubator. I incubated these ducklings in a tupperware container under a heat lamp.

 

[Courthamilton]

Holy Guacamole! You're braver than me!

 

[BanditTheDuck]

Hehe, yeah. I honestly didn't even know anything about incubating when I started, and by the time I read about needing an incubator, it was too late, because they were already almost fully developed. But I guess I just proved that you don't have to use an incubator...

 

[BanditTheDuck]

He still hasn't unzipped any further, and it looks like he's stuck in that position. It keeps trying to poke it's whole bill through the membrane (which is vein-free) so should I peel it back? Or should I help him unzip?

 

[Courthamilton]

How long has it been total hours now?

 

[BanditTheDuck]

40 hours and 40 minutes