Question about cold duckling eggs.

[Unruffled]

I have these three duckling eggs that were abandoned by one of my ducks. They were abandoned for about a half a day when I found them. They were quite cool to the touch, but I was incubating some other duck eggs anyway, so I candled them. The activity inside was almost nonexistent, but it was there. So I put them in the incubator.

Today the first duckling hatched out of those three. They needed assistance to hatch and, although they are an hour old now, they still haven’t uncurled their neck. This may be normal, but I’ve hatched over a hundred ducklings and have never seen it before( I am not by any means claiming to have seen everything, mind you, not by a long shot). I was wondering if it could be a developmental thing, brought on by the temp. Drop during their time in the egg? Or is it normal and they will just straighten out their neck in time?

Does anyone have experience with hatching eggs that went through a cold patch?

 

[HollowOfWisps]

I have these three duckling eggs that were abandoned by one of my ducks. They were abandoned for about a half a day when I found them. They were quite cool to the touch, but I was incubating some other duck eggs anyway, so I candled them. The activity inside was almost nonexistent, but it was there. So I put them in the incubator.

Today the first duckling hatched out of those three. They needed assistance to hatch and, although they are an hour old now, they still haven’t uncurled their neck. This may be normal, but I’ve hatched over a hundred ducklings and have never seen it before( I am not by any means claiming to have seen everything, mind you, not by a long shot). I was wondering if it could be a developmental thing, brought on by the temp. Drop during their time in the egg? Or is it normal and they will just straighten out their neck in time?

Does anyone have experience with hatching eggs that went through a cold patch?

I raise a breed that in most cases requires assistance hatching and it takes all of my assisted hatches much longer than an hour to uncurl. They usually lay there looking half dead for a good 3-4 hours at least before they even start to move their head. Out of all my assisted hatches the soonest I've seen one even attempt to be mobile was 6 hours after hatch. I give assisted hatches a good 24 hours before I start to worry. However, I keep Rooster Booster's "Poultry Cell" on hand and everyone gets dosed with it. I've had assisted hatches who after 24 hours in the incubator were flopping like a fish go to walking and running with the others using Poultry cell.