My last hatch the ducks figured out they could drink from my humidity cup.
Beautiful chicks!
You’d be horrified at how many times I’ve opened the incubator during our staggered keet hatch! I try not to open it while another egg is pipped but it’s happened many times now. This hasn’t been without consequence - several have zipped the egg shell off all of the way around, but can’t cut the tough dried egg shell membrane. Those I’ve helped out by tearing the membrane and they’ve been fine. Unfortunately, I did miss one because it’s zip was where I couldn’t see it from my incubator window. Best of luck with your early hatch!
I have opened so many incubators to get chicks out for playing soccer with the eggs that hadn't happened yet thinking I was helping. I have had so many chicks that needed to be hand hatched which cuts down on their survivability. However I became really good at it and even today when I believe all of them have hatched I find one or 2 that pipped very late and I still have to hand hatch them. I actually open it up every hour and by hand crack a little bit at a time. after a few hours I break them out then put the egg back together to make them bust out on their own. Then they are born with egg shell stuck to them. I usually leave the egg shell stuck to them unless it covers the eyes, or the wings. and the wings are the hardest to remove that sticky membrane from. When the wings are fused together by egg membrane I end up needing to soak the wings/back in warm water. I am so afraid I will break a delicate wing when I do this.
I’m not sure that the keets are “shrink wrapped” in the same way that chicks are. When they dry out, they don’t have the amniotic membrane adhering to their feathers, it’s the outer egg shell membrane that is drying out. If you crack a guinea egg to fry in a pan (really delicious!), the shell is really hard, much harder than duck or chicken. However, even after you crack the shell, the egg membrane is often still intact and can prevent you from getting the egg out of the shell and into the pan! This outer membrane is what keeps drying out in my keets when I open the lid. So, it’s not dried down on the keet, it’s still next to the shell itself, but it’s so leathery, like a turtle’s egg, that the keet can’t slice it open with their egg tooth. The one that I found too late had cracked the egg shell all the way around, but this shell membrane only had a few holes in it, so I think it smothered! This pic shows another egg, where the egg shell is breaking off in chunks, but the shell membrane is still there and only partially opened by the keet. I don’t remember whether this keet needed assistance or finally pushed the membrane apart...
