June Hatch A Long

[jolenesdad]

Wow! I would be so stressed out!!! I hope that you are able to free your chicks that pipped the small end! That bruising is wild... so is it blood from pipping through a blood vessel? And... thanks for the pic of your adorable duckling !! I’m living vicariously here... I hope your babies do wonderfully overnight!

I have NO idea what the blood vessel is.

I’ve never done ducks. Oh and about your earlier question... no I haven’t ever imprinted ducks before (see above). but I’ve spoken to a few people who say the ducks let the human imprint go.

They already respond to my voice and the word in the incubator I cannot wait to get them out.

A single duck with humans or a house duck is a different story. We will see how it goes. I have a waiting list off Craigslist for any extras knowing and hoping they are imprinted!

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

I have NO idea what the blood vessel is.

I’ve never done ducks. Oh and about your earlier question... no I haven’t ever imprinted ducks before (see above). but I’ve spoken to a few people who say the ducks let the human imprint go.

They already respond to my voice and the word in the incubator I cannot wait to get them out.

A single duck with humans or a house duck is a different story. We will see how it goes. I have a waiting list off Craigslist for any extras knowing and hoping they are imprinted!

Very interesting, after the dust settles, I would love to hear how the imprinting went! Last year, we hatched chicks first, then combined ducks + guineas. I was surprised at how different the hatching of the ducks was as compared to chicks! It’s seemed to me that the duck version of the “zip” was to mostly push the head and feet in opposite directions while rolling around and kind of burst out of the egg! My whole impression of the ducklings were that they were like cute and fuzzy, giant abominable snowmen, lumbering around the incubator and brooder and eating all in their path, as they tossed water everywhere...

 

[LuckyCluckyCA]

Mine go into lockdown tomorrow- the humidity has been high the entire time my incubator did not give you an option to adjust it. In another thread I started I said day 17 and I’m freaking out and an awesome member explained to me that the level of the water would never affect the humidity that it comes from the surface area. I don’t think I ever learned that in school and I have 2 masters degrees! Anyway I got myself so worried about shrink wrapping now that I learned the eggs could do that, I made myself sick! I think 4 of my 6 eggs are doing ok and 2 are different but are for sure bigger than they were last week so I guess we will see. This group is very helpful. These are the 2 questionable eggs. The bottom pic is of one of the good ones to show the air cel- someone had asked if they were good and I think so.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Okay!

I have 23/30 external pips.

One of those external pips is a quitter and one of the non pippers definitely is gone. While the humidity had spiked from three silver Appleyards hatching, I grabbed all the bottom hatching eggs and I’m really glad I did.

I think they’ve pipped the bottom because they appear to my novice eyes to be shrink wrapped. I’ve included photos below. In the one of the group in the incubator you can see how far away that membrane is from the shell. It would make sense... these guys are stuck a bit, can’t move, scratch a blood vessel trying, and finally get a hole on the bottom. Plausible?

Thanks to everything I’ve learned here from everyone but especially @LilyD and @CluckNDoodle , I chipped away a hole in each air cell to look safely for veins. I feel like I am going to have to assist each of these bottom pips when the time is right. They all have lots of veins, one or two lightish veins. I tried to do that on the side of the air cell in a way that they will still hopefully be able to kick out on their own. I’m feeling really cautiously optimistic about it all. A little stumped why these would be this way, but analyze later!

Cluckndoodle here is a photo of the non pipped egg that didn’t make it. I saw the bruise so grabbed it too wondering if I could rescue it, but it was already gone. This is the worst bruise of all, clearly insurmountable.


Silver Appleyard
View attachment 1824186

Hard, hard membrane on the bottom pippers.
View attachment 1824189

If you blow this up you can see how separated the membrane is. I could have taken the entire bottom of the shell.
View attachment 1824191

Swoon!
View attachment 1824192

Hi!
View attachment 1824194

:-/
View attachment 1824193

The duckling is soooo precious!!!
And I can see what you mean about those membranes, they are really really dry.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Mine go into lockdown tomorrow- the humidity has been high the entire time my incubator did not give you an option to adjust it. In another thread I started I said day 17 and I’m freaking out and an awesome member explained to me that the level of the water would never affect the humidity that it comes from the surface area. I don’t think I ever learned that in school and I have 2 masters degrees! Anyway I got myself so worried about shrink wrapping now that I learned the eggs could do that, I made myself sick! I think 4 of my 6 eggs are doing ok and 2 are different but are for sure bigger than they were last week so I guess we will see. This group is very helpful. These are the 2 questionable eggs. The bottom pic is of one of the good ones to show the air cel- someone had asked if they were good and I think so.

Yes, humidity is all about surface area, that's why there are usually multiple reservoirs in incubators, one to use during the first 18 days and both can be used for the last 3. What incubator are you using? If you have a hygrometer to read the humidity in your incubator and it read as high with only one reservoir filled then there is usually a vent that can be opened as well to help regulate your humidity.
The issue with overly high humidity for the first 18 days isn't shrink wrapping, it's something called sticky chicks and with extreme levels of humidity during the hatch, the chicks can actually drown. Your air cell doesn't look bad though and it will change a lot in the final days of lockdown as well!
I would try to keep the humidity around 65-70% after lockdown. What percentage has the hygrometer been showing for the last 17 days?
Don't stress too much! We all get a little anxious at hatch time, we just do the best we can to keep everything as stable as possible through the whole incubation but sometimes things are just out of our hands. Good luck on your hatch!!

 

[dougieee]

Mine go into lockdown tomorrow- the humidity has been high the entire time my incubator did not give you an option to adjust it. In another thread I started I said day 17 and I’m freaking out and an awesome member explained to me that the level of the water would never affect the humidity that it comes from the surface area. I don’t think I ever learned that in school and I have 2 masters degrees! Anyway I got myself so worried about shrink wrapping now that I learned the eggs could do that, I made myself sick! I think 4 of my 6 eggs are doing ok and 2 are different but are for sure bigger than they were last week so I guess we will see. This group is very helpful. These are the 2 questionable eggs. The bottom pic is of one of the good ones to show the air cel- someone had asked if they were good and I think so.

The first hatch is always the most stressful but you generally learn an awful lot about your bator, mine is large (72 capacity) with 8 reservoirs, ive found 4 filled with the vent open maintains a nice 45% for the first 18 days then all filled with the vent closed for the lockdown keeps it pretty much bang on 60-65%.
Uk doesnt have a particularly high ambient humidity or temps so i guess that makes it easier for the bator to maintain these i have no idea how it affects other members around the globe though

 

[Bookworm0124]

Hard, hard membrane on the bottom pippers.
View attachment 1824189

If you blow this up you can see how separated the membrane is. I could have taken the entire bottom of the shell

That's how the membranes of my ducks looked like, they needed lots of help, but made it just fine

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Do we have a July Hatch-a-long already going? I'm picking up eggs today to participate with those that were talking about July hatches.

They're not the English Orpington eggs that I had originally planned on getting but I'm pretty excited about them!

 

[Bookworm0124]

Do we have a July Hatch-a-long already going? I'm picking up eggs today to participate with those that were talking about July hatches.

They're not the English Orpington eggs that I had originally planned on getting but I'm pretty excited about them!

There's a June July one, not sure about July specifically

 

[CluckNDoodle]

There's a June July one, not sure about July specifically

Thanks! I just found it!