He's out!! I'm officially a call duck mommy! Not only is that so awesome but this little guy came from a shipped egg that had a totally detached air cell. I've never gotten a detached air cell to develop, let alone hatch. So lots of firsts for me with this little one! I got him half way out and then was worried sick he was stuck in the shell by the membrane but after a short rest, he pushed himself right out of the bottom of the shell all by himself! Lots of pics coming once he's dry. He's going to be a lone duckling for 2 & 1/2 weeks until my next batch of calls hatch (yeah, I can't believe I'm doing this again). So any advice for keeping a single duckling?
[QUOTE="BigWeenMachine, post: 16902422, member: 0"]
LOL, Hope I didn;t offend you. They are cute but something about the combination of baby chicks and a play castle just hit my funny bone. Those two things just don't come up in the same sentence too often, or really ever until now, so I think the pure randomness of it is hilarious! Now you've got me giggling again thinking about it!
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It hit my funny bone too! You're not alone!
[QUOTE="BigWeenMachine, post: 16902440, member: 0"]
Yea, these were shipped eggs so I don't know how long for sure they had been laid before I got them. They could really be closer to 18 or 20% weight loss i they were laid 4 or 5 days before I got them. Now I'm really worried.
Did you ever have any that lost more than the 14% that hatched okay?
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That's the thing with shipped eggs, (we discussed this on another thread a while back) you can not accurately weigh them. There is no way to know how much weight was lost while they were being stored and through transit. What you can do is weigh some of your own eggs next time after they are laid and watch the air cell growth carefully so you know by eye how much weight loss % looks like. Know what I mean?
[QUOTE="BigWeenMachine, post: 16902499, member: 0"]
Lol, boy ducks can be lil brats at hatching time. Is he out yet? He looks like if he hiccuped he'd fall right out of there but he wants to be stubborn.
Looks like maybe the membrane has him tucked in there like a hammock. If he pushes and can't get out in the next hour or so you might have to tear that membrane a lil bit at the bottom of the egg. I had one of my anconas that had a similar issue with the membrane and you could watch him push and push yet the membrane just stretched and bounced back to it's original shape. Once I put a lil tear in the membrane the lil ducky was able to finally push his way out. from that picture, I would think a straight tear from membrane below his wing down towards the bottom of the egg should do it. That is of course if there are no veins in the membrane.
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Yes, you're 100% right. That's basically what I did. I removed only a tiny bit more shell and that membrane and he wiggled right out the top. But stayed in the bottom for about a half hour before pushing out.
Eta: because I screwed up!
