Help! New, stressed duck Mama!!

bydhatch

Chirping
Jul 23, 2016
246
24
64
NC
Hello! Would really appreciate any help here: We have been incubating duck eggs for quite some time and estimate them to be around day 26 (?) on one and a bit behind on the other 4 eggs. Day 26 egg made a crack in the egg that we noticed Wednesday night. A more of a pip, I assume, appeared at about 12 yesterday. Yesterday night, about 6, it appeared he had begun zipping, with more of a holes forming a circle. However, it is not clear if he is all the way through the egg yet and I do not want to open the incubator to inspect. Since last night we have not visually seen any more progress and he has not been chirping. Is this normal behavior??
 
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They do rest alot between all the steps of hatching, but if you have not heard any peeping or seen any movement at all then it may have died. :/ Can you try peeping at the egg (from outside the incubator) and see if that wakes it up? They should get excited and move around and answer you if you peep at them. Sometimes they lose motivation if there are no others in there hatching at the same time making noise, so we have to help keep them excited and working to hatch out. :)
 
@Orca5094 thank you for replying! I have heard tapping on the egg helps as well! Is that true? Should I peep and tap?
 
Yes, tapping or scratching gently on the shell with your fingernail helps as well. You should hear peeping or scratching back at you when you do that. That requires you to open the incubator of course, but if you are concerned about the little guy maybe you should go ahead and do that quickly? If it is still alive in there, just spray a mist of water all around inside the incubator when you put him back in to help get the humidity back up quickly. This is to prevent the membrane from drying out onto the duckling. Let us know what you hear, ok? I hope he's ok in there!
 
Provided the fact that my 4 others have not yet pipped, I believe I will pull him out and check him out. Thank you!! I will let you know!
 
400

Well. It doesn't look good. I think he's gone.
 
Any ideas if the float test would work on the other duck eggs? One seems a bit off in color.
 
Quickly candled my others, they look no different to me than they did on Tuesday...what do I do next?? Help.
 

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