Help Please! Duck hatch.

[danikiser]

Hello. I am on day 29 of a duck hatch. Indian runner ducks. This has been a hard hatch, I had silkie eggs and the duck eggs together. We had a couple power outages, once overnight where it was out for 8 hours towards the end of incubation. Of the 6 chicken eggs, 5 of 6 pipped but couldn't get through the shells, so I helped them out and they are strong and healthy now. One looked to have died a few days before.

The duck eggs the air sacs dipped fully by 4 days ago and I could see movement shadows at the top. I checked again yesterday and still the shadows and movement in the air cell space. This morning the same, but they are moving less. I was getting a bit worried, so I opened one up a bit, the duck hadn't pipped yet, but there was no blood when the inner membrane was opened a bit, but a ton of fluid. The yolk isn't all the way absorbed yet, and the baby is barely moving.

I should add that we are in rainy season, and right now even without water in the incubator we are at 88% humidity.

I have 9 more in the incubator, I don't want them to die, I'm afraid they might be drowning. Anyone have any suggestions? The one I opened is wrapped in the egg in a towel and still moving, breathing, but not much. Thank you.

 

[cmfarm]

It sounds to me like you may need to help these guys out also. I would pip all the eggs for them and see how they look. They will soon run out of air if not. This is what I have done in the past; lightly smush the egg until the outside breaks some but not all the way. It helps keep them from sticking to the eggs as much helps promote the veins to draw up the blood with increase movement.

 

[danikiser]

Ok, so I opened up 5 when I got the reply, and one was super wet, one malpositioned, the others ok. I left the last 5 cause the first ones I opened still hadn't absorbed the yolk, though there wasn't much blood. I just opened the last, 2 more wet ones and two more malpositioned. What a disaster. They all have yolk to absorb, so they are resting in their shells at the moment, but all are alive and moving. I'll update more tomorrow.