It should be OK. Temperature should be a bit lower than what you incubated at. The higher the humidity the lower the chance of the membrane drying out. If it's beige or parchment colored instead of bluish white then it's dried out and can be peeled back unless it bleeds. The blood should already be absorbed though if he's started absorbing the yolk sack. And if he should finish absorbing the yolk sac before he's ready to hatch. If he's "chirping silently" or "looks like he's chewing" he's still absorbing the yolk sac. Elevated CO2 triggers the yolk absorption so it should have begun about the same time as internal pipping. How long it takes to complete varies, but until it's finished you don't want your duck out of the shell.
Morning now, just candled very quickly without moving the egg to see whats happening and it looks like the beak is pretty close to the safety hole we made. Humidity is back up now and only had it open less than a minute. No signs of an external pip though or anywhere that looked thinner as if there have been attempts. Have heard a little bit of very quiet peeping and very occasional rocking of the egg.
Temperature is at 99 now, should it be lower? Humidity at 73. Have read and watched a lot of videos on assisting a hatch so definitely know not to intervene too much and especially to not keep going if there are still veins exposed. Haven’t done any more than the safety hole for now, but considering giving it a little more time and if there isn’t any progress soon we will open the hole up a little wider. I am worried about shrink wrapping while doing this, if the hole is big enough I should wet the membrane, right?
99 is good. And you may not get an external pip because the safety hole serves the same purpose. He could move right into zipping. If the peeping doesn't sound too weak or panicky I'd leave him to his own resources a while longer.
No change. It seems like it has been trying to peck at the safety hole we made, but the opening isn’t any bigger yet. Has been doing that since this morning. We haven’t tried to open the hole any larger yet. When it makes noise it’s pretty quiet but have heard it a few times and the egg rocks sometimes when he moves. Can see what looks like a small white speck moving near the hole when we shine a light at it through the incubator.
At this point I'd probably go ahead and open the safety hole enough to get a better view of the bird's face. Just use tweezers or forceps and pinch off small pieces of shell around the opening while cupping the egg in your nondominant hand. Don't worry about making it too big, just keep the pieces small and watch for bleeding. Stop if you see bleeding or when you have a good view of the bill.
Okay thank you, I will do this. This is a picture of where we put the safety hole, is it possible it is not a good spot so the bird is having a hard time getting through the shell?
