Horribly, and I mean HORRIBLY deformed duckling

[Horselover8795]

I don't know what happened. All my eggs had hatched except one who hadn't even pipped. I assumed it had died and broke open the egg just out of curiosity (I hope that's not weird lol). Anyways when I cracked it open (I cracked it open on the air sac side so I didn't actually touch the baby) I noticed that the membrane inside was moving and the baby was alive! I left it for another 2 days before trying to help it out of the membrane and oh my god that was a mistake. He was so deformed I started crying: he didn't have a top beak at all, one eye was blind and the other non existent and his brain formed outside his head! And he was still alive when I discovered this. I didn't know what to do I ended up just putting him out of his misery. Has anything like this ever happened to any of you guys?? I have a picture of it if anyone is curious

 

[70%cocoa]

That must have been an awful shock....

You did the right thing by ending its life. Poor little fella!

 

[Mum]

I'm so sorry for your shocking experience. I don't have enough experience to have had anything like this happen to me. I'm glad you put it out of its misery.

 

[Habibs Hens]

i am so sorry for your loss that must have been so upsetting

im, trying to learn as much as i can about fowl and if its too distressing to post here could you pm the pic to me

i just wanna see what different forms of abnormaility can arrise

 

[BlackBrookPoultry]

I had a shipped orpington chick that I decided to try to "help" hatch. It did not form the top part of its beak. I ended up just letting it get shrink wrapped and die. Also i had a cochin last year that hatched with only one eye. It died within days so there were probably other problems I couldn't see. These were both from shipped eggs.

 

[CorinneP]

Poor thing .. Im sure it had nothing to do with your helping though the beaks and such are formed much earlier than hatching time if all is right .. I guess its just like with humans .. anything can happen . but that must have been hard on you.

 

[Tahai]

My sympathies to you. Killing a newborn is so difficult to do emotionally. I have not had this experience with eggs, but did with a baby rabbit. It was born with it's abdomen not formed, so all it's lower organs were laying out. I couldn't bring myself to kill it, even though I KNEW I had too... I just set it aside in a little nest till my brother could come over. It ended up dying on it's own within a couple of hours. I still feel guilt over not being able to do the merciful thing.

 

[Miss Lydia]

So sorry

 

[QuackerJackFarms]

so awful. Hugs to you.

 

[cskotek]

Oh my goodness! That must have been tramatic. Im sorry this had happened, But he/she is now in a much better place and I hope this never happens again!