From eggs to ducklings

[CayugaJana]

12:32 am I have my first duckling!

Here is a pic from only moments after it sprang from its shell!

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Im so excited for you. It’s cute cute cute!!

I now have two ducklings after a gut feeling told me to look at the second struggling egg. It had the same malposition as the first but almost all the veins where tiny.
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Whoop whoop! I can’t wait to see how they grow.

I decided to bring out the trio to my living room, (no carpet) and offer the ducklings some space to move about and see more than their dark brooder box. They loved it got really active. So I gave them their mush and pebble water and they played in both while attacking the dogs that got to close. Dogs were very good but will never be alone unsupervised with the ducklings.

Ducklings enjoying their mush food I made tonight.
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The two dogs wondering what all the peeping and such was. I liked that I became a jungle gym for the one.
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That is so sweet.

 

[Knighstar679]

Maryland egg update. Two pips from the little egglets. Two I really feel I have to watch. I can see into the shells of two of them way more than I have heard I should and much more than I was able to yesterday, but they still had movement so I marked them and put them back and adjusted humidity.

 

[Miss Lydia]

They are precious babies

 

[Knighstar679]

Maryland egg morning update. 4 eggs are now external pipped with a fifth working on it. The other four seem quiet so far.

 

[Knighstar679]

5pm update everyone has pipped two required safety holes to get them to really get moving. Think they maybe upside down as when I candled it looks more like a foot than a head.

One duckling popped right out of his shell as soon as I checked the incubator when I got home.

Three others are zipping right now. These guys are hatching much faster than Texas.

 

[Lil Drake40]

 

[Knighstar679]

Duckling update,

I currently have 8 new baby welsh Harlequin ducklings. 1 died in shell before I started assisting. Triggered me to start assisting in the others.

Had to full assist 5 out of the 8 hatched eggs. All of them head their foot above their heads but they also didn’t have a normal sized air cell either (it was still small). Think this is how the DIS happened it ran out of air. 1 egg I assisted with a safety hole and after I did the egg hatched in an hour. Two hatched normally.

These ones took less than 24 hours from external pip to hatch.

I had to get creative with assisting though because there was not nearly enough space between the shell and membrane to break away to give the ducklings room. So I started just chipping shell away until it looked like a normal air cell size. Then tried to peal shell membrane off the chick membrane. Was EXTREMELY hard to do and not see blood. But everyone had no yolks and some even had pooped in the shell by the time I could get them out.

The final three just finished kicking out and still have their butts in the shell but you can tell they are extremely exhausted. I did some nutra-drench but they still seemed the same.

 

[WVduckchick]

Great job! Post some pics when you can.

 

[Knighstar679]

A bucket of Maryland ducklings


Four still seem weak from hatching and are still in the incubator. Four are in the brooder with Texas.

Though there is one little guy who seems weaker than the others even after nutra- drench. He seems to not stay right side up even laying down. I am hoping he will be better in the morning.

Here are the single pics of each baby. But if I am right I have a bunch of males this batch and only two females

 

[Lil Drake40]