Hatching emergency!I thought I was doing an eggtopsy but it is alive!

[adrian]

Chances are that if one egg is wet like this, other ones will be, too. So you have a few options... Let things be, in hopes that they survive, or make a small observation hole from the top of the egg and try to see how wet they are. The humidity in your incubator will have to go up a lot and you will have to monitor every egg for dry membranes. However, if they are all as wet as this egg there is a good chance they will drown. Also, they may be weak and simply die. It's hard to say. Call ducks are hard to hatch to begin with because many of them have issues with pipping. Is the little guy moving around a lot, breathing? What may look like absorption could be him dying; in which case, so long as he didn't lose a lot of blood (think: blood gushing), probably could not have been prevented... Just keep him warm and make sure he's still moving / breathing if he is breathing.

As for the others... It is a gamble regardless of what you choose to do, so it really depends upon what you feel most comfortable with at this point.

 

[cejones119]

Turns out he has not absorbed all his yolk yet. He is moving around a lot. The other one that looked like he did was dead. I'm going to leave the one that's internally pipped and the few that haven't filled the egg yet. I think I am going to make an observation hole in the two that have totally filled though. Even though I can bet they haven't absorbed the yolk, if they try to hatch they'll probably drown, right?

 

[adrian]

Yes, at this point it's not about letting them out of the shell at all, it's about freeing their beaks so that they can breathe. Are they at the same point as this guy? The thing is that if they start breathing before you intervene and there's too much liquid, they will breathe it in and die. If they have already started breathing and lucked out, by just narrowly missing the liquid, they could inhale it later when they move, because they will inevitable begin to move around the circumference of the egg. It's really good to hear he is moving a lot, though. I didn't expect his yolk to be fully absorbed with blood vessels that active. I think, things look good for him. If you can keep an eye on the yolk and the membrane (to see how many blood vessels are present), you'll know when he's ready. I highly suggest allowing him to extricate himself from the egg because they tend to know when they are ready. If he starts to move too much and begins to push himself out before his yolk sac/veins are drawn in completely, get a moist paper towel and wrap it over the top of his egg, leaving a space for his beak, and that should keep him in if there is enough pressure (doesn't need to be too much).

I think the observation window for the other eggs is a good idea. Wet the membranes with a q-tip and try to see how much liquid there is in the eggs. Also look for movement and veins through the membrane. Only then can you decide how to proceed.

Also... Thought I'd share a success story...

This little muscovy was in a very wet egg. You can't tell because so much of it was syphoned away (although the membrane here can be seen as very brown, gooey from the moisture that was there), but I had to free her beak from the membrane before she even began to breathe because my first muscovy egg died due to aspiration of the fluids. I did an eggtopsy and saw that he had drowned, and that the egg was filled with an alarming amount of brown fluid. I've never assisted an egg prior to internal pip before, but this duckling was struggling and literally began to breathe the moment I pulled her beak away from the goo.

Eventually she began to try to push her way out (a lot later--as high as I kept the humidity she was getting fluffy, but was not stuck to the egg thankfully) and I had to use the paper towel to keep her in:

However she eventually popped out of her own accord, and grew up to be quite the personality.

So, assisted hatches, even early, can be life savers.

 

[cejones119]

I can't tell you how helpful you've been. Thank you! My duckies will probably owe you their lives. I'll update on how it goes with the other guys!

 

[Rosto]

Hope the baby will be ok! It's awful when they don't just pop out on their own. Sure keeps you on pins and needles for a while.

 

[cejones119]

So I made windows on all but one of them. 4 of them were already dead unfortunately. There are three with their faces out, one with the membrane still over because he had a lot of blood vessels and not too much fluid and one more that I haven't done anything with because he still has a lot of space and blood vesseling. Not sure if I'm making the right choice with the last two, but I'm going to stick with it for now. I did open the one that had internally pipped and I'm glad I did. He hadn't actually broken through the membrane just pushed into it. So he was still stuck in the fluid. Again, thanks for your help!

 

[adrian]

I'm sorry to hear that your 4 eggs died. Unfortunately it's really hard to save them all with all of that liquid in the eggs. As for the baby who has a lot of veins and doesn't appear to be in trouble -- that is good. I would say he won't need assistance. The main thing is making sure that he won't drown. Now you know. What I can suggest is taking a damp (but not wet) paper towel, even two of them so it is thicker, and laying them overtop the little observation windows you created. You probably don't need to do this with the one in this thread because he's further along. The membrane, the yolk and the blood vessels will be better if they are protected from the drying air that (if you have a fan) would be blowing directly down towards them. Even without a fan it is a good idea. Just keep checking on the egg and make sure nothing goes wrong. Also, keep a close eye on the membrane on the egg in this thread: they will likely dry over time, but that can be fixed with a wet q-tip every so often.

I agree with your decision not to open the egg with lots of space left. You have one big advantage: your babies are facing the air cell, and not away from it. I had an egg very similar to these that was filled with this liquid, but unfortunately the baby was positioned away from the air cell, and he could not be saved.

I find that it's hard for these babies to internally pip because the membrane is so gooey, not supple like it is in normal eggs. So I have never seen a proper internal pip in very wet eggs.

Please let me know how things go.

 

[cejones119]

Unfortunately no one made it. I did do the paper towel thing, but I think it raised the humidity up too much. Also my thermostat got shorted out because of all the humidity, so it was down to 70 in there when I woke up this morning. I have another batch of these eggs 10 days behind in another incubator that I've been incubating drier. Even though my humidity was at 45% in this incubator until lockdown. Hopefully I'll have better luck with the other batch. Though I'm not really looking forward to it at this point...

 

[adrian]

Oh, I'm really sorry... I did not know that humidity could cause issues with thermostats as I have never experienced that myself. I am sorry if I mislead you in any way, but with all that liquid in the eggs there likely wasn't too much you could have done. I think it may be something related to the eggs themselves. I feel awful for you. But please remember: try try again. Sometimes things are beyond our control no matter what we do, but you will get it right. Once again very sorry and I hope you have better luck next time...

 

[f8thnjc]

I don't know a whole lot about ducks, but it looks like your humidity might be on the high side. That might be why they are drowning.