help with hatching ducks and guinea fowl

[Stacy Lucht]

I am hatching some of my son's mallards and guineas fowl in a Nurture Right incubator. We successfully hatched 6 mallards last month and he wants a few more. He also traded for some guinea eggs which are new to us. The eggs are at day 28 today, 10 of the 11 mallards have pipped ,2 starting at 900 last night, (it is 400 pm now) , and the rest this morning. One has not pipped but it candled fine before lockdown.
None of the guinea eggs have pipped and I am starting to worry. They seemed to be fine when candled, but their shells are hard to see throught
My temp is at 99, I dropped it from 99.5 at lockdown and raised my humidity from 55% to 75% when I locked down 2 days ago.

My questions are:
should I artificially pip the last duck egg and/or any of the guineas or give them another day?
Also, if none of the pipped eggs have finished hatching by bedtime, do I leave them for tomorrow or try to assist?
I did have to assist one of the ducklings in the last hatch, he pipped, then took more than a day to partially zip, then quit. I took a tweezers and gently eased the shell a little more he seemed dry, but recovered fine after he finished coming out.
If you have to open the incubator for any reason, if it is only open for a few seconds is that a problem? I know that it should not be opened, but how can people assist, or remove ducklings that have been in there for 24 hours if there is still unhatched eggs?
any assistance is appreciated. thanks!

 

[MGG]

I am hatching some of my son's mallards and guineas fowl in a Nurture Right incubator. We successfully hatched 6 mallards last month and he wants a few more. He also traded for some guinea eggs which are new to us. The eggs are at day 28 today, 10 of the 11 mallards have pipped ,2 starting at 900 last night, (it is 400 pm now) , and the rest this morning. One has not pipped but it candled fine before lockdown.
None of the guinea eggs have pipped and I am starting to worry. They seemed to be fine when candled, but their shells are hard to see throught
My temp is at 99, I dropped it from 99.5 at lockdown and raised my humidity from 55% to 75% when I locked down 2 days ago.

My questions are:
should I artificially pip the last duck egg and/or any of the guineas or give them another day?
Also, if none of the pipped eggs have finished hatching by bedtime, do I leave them for tomorrow or try to assist?
I did have to assist one of the ducklings in the last hatch, he pipped, then took more than a day to partially zip, then quit. I took a tweezers and gently eased the shell a little more he seemed dry, but recovered fine after he finished coming out.
If you have to open the incubator for any reason, if it is only open for a few seconds is that a problem? I know that it should not be opened, but how can people assist, or remove ducklings that have been in there for 24 hours if there is still unhatched eggs?
any assistance is appreciated. thanks!

Leave the ducks alone, they sound perfectly fine. If there is no progress on the ducks for 36 hours, then you can start assisting. I would leave the guineas, they can take a while. Mine always pip on day 29 and hatch on day 30. My temp is good too so I don't know why they take that long. Don't worry about them. Guineas are really good at hatching. If you need to open the incubator, mist the eggs with warm water when you open and close it. I do this and I've never had a shrink-wrapped chick. I open a lot during lockdown to remove birds, assist others, add water, etc. Let me know if you have any other questions, and welcome to BYC!

 

[Stacy Lucht]

Leave the ducks alone, they sound perfectly fine. If there is no progress on the ducks for 36 hours, then you can start assisting. I would leave the guineas, they can take a while. Mine always pip on day 29 and hatch on day 30. My temp is good too so I don't know why they take that long. Don't worry about them. Guineas are really good at hatching. If you need to open the incubator, mist the eggs with warm water when you open and close it. I do this and I've never had a shrink-wrapped chick. I open a lot during lockdown to remove birds, assist others, add water, etc. Let me know if you have any other questions, and welcome to BYC!

Thank you!! I have been reading things like crazy on the net, hard to find much on hatching that applies to ducks and Guineas. I will try to be patient . As a nurse and a mom, the instinct is to help and everything I have read agrees with you to wait it out except in specific circumstances

 

[MGG]

Thank you!! I have been reading things like crazy on the net, hard to find much on hatching that applies to ducks and Guineas. I will try to be patient . As a nurse and a mom, the instinct is to help and everything I have read agrees with you to wait it out except in specific circumstances

Keep us updated! Glad I could help. A lot of incubating eggs is just waiting. It's a bit annoying at times, at least for me

 

[Stacy Lucht]

Leave the ducks alone, they sound perfectly fine. If there is no progress on the ducks for 36 hours, then you can start assisting. I would leave the guineas, they can take a while. Mine always pip on day 29 and hatch on day 30. My temp is good too so I don't know why they take that long. Don't worry about them. Guineas are really good at hatching. If you need to open the incubator, mist the eggs with warm water when you open and close it. I do this and I've never had a shrink-wrapped chick. I open a lot during lockdown to remove birds, assist others, add water, etc. Let me know if you have any other questions, and welcome to BYC!

Reppo

 

[MGG]

Reppo

How's it going?

 

[Stacy Lucht]

Report on the hatch, we successfully hatched all 11 duck eggs, I had to assist with one that was stuck, but he recovered fine overnight! It took several of them 38 hours and most of them 24+ to go from external pip to hatch.
One guinea egg pipped and hatched yesterday within 4 hours, another pipped yesterday and finally hatched at noon today, and the 3rd pipped and hatched today. I still have 6 more, I think at least 4 of them look viable, there were 2 others that didn't have a good looking air sac and seem a little light colored last week, and 2 of the 4 have shells are so dark I have not been able to candle them well from the beginning. This is day 29 for the remaining guineas, I guess I leave them a couple more days and see what happens. thanks for the advice and support!

 

[MGG]

Report on the hatch, we successfully hatched all 11 duck eggs, I had to assist with one that was stuck, but he recovered fine overnight! It took several of them 38 hours and most of them 24+ to go from external pip to hatch.
One guinea egg pipped and hatched yesterday within 4 hours, another pipped yesterday and finally hatched at noon today, and the 3rd pipped and hatched today. I still have 6 more, I think at least 4 of them look viable, there were 2 others that didn't have a good looking air sac and seem a little light colored last week, and 2 of the 4 have shells are so dark I have not been able to candle them well from the beginning. This is day 29 for the remaining guineas, I guess I leave them a couple more days and see what happens. thanks for the advice and support!

Awesome! Congratulations! It sounds like you did an amazing job!