Scariest hatch ever so far !

[KellyHDucklings]

We had a New Year’s Day hatch (Indian runner ducks) I had seen that the baby had started to pip on Thursday, a little more Friday and then the shell was open wide enough to see the beak and a foot sort of sticking out and stuck, the baby was squeaking so loudly , I was so worried to do to help. So I did a fast google search, read what I could and made the decision to help, Iv helped before and thought that it was going to be as simple as before. I would carefully peel away a little of shell and the baby would pop out . Well I was wrong ! The baby was squeaking non stop and wriggling which gave me hope that she was ready, and then she just stopped. Went limp, I couldn’t even see if she was breathing any more. So I carefully started to peel the shell away, and to my absolute horror the egg began to fill with blood, my hands were also getting cleverer. I have a lot of experience with other birds such as parrots , pigeons and other domestic and wild birds, and I have never seen this ever. Luckily I had already grabbed a hair dryer, ( google help!) and I used the hair dryer on low heat from a distance to make the blood congeal and stop the baby from bleeding out. Eventually I got the baby out and it looked so poorly, I was kicking myself for helping too much, for not helping fast enough, for not letting nature take its course and then for even considering let nature take its course. I held the baby wrapped in a warm towel and expected it to die. I again googled and read many posts from this group and decided that I was gonna keep trying to keep this baby alive. I wrapped her in a warm damp cloth, placed her under a heat lamp, cleaned the blood and kept her swollen belly button clean and I made sure their was no bleeding . And I am completely amazed by how hardy these babies are ! She is beautiful and happy and loves cuddles , I basically want to say Thankyou to everyone who posts on this website, your knowledge and advice is used way past the date that you posted, I even had my kids reading as much as they could from this website and reading out what to do for me whilst I was having a mild heart attack !
But now I need a little more advice please. This baby is gorgeous but it is Monday and she has hardly eaten anything, I know they don’t have to eat straight away, but should I be worried yet ? I should also say that the yolk inside the egg was dried up and only her belly button was very swollen, so I’m pretty sure that she had all the goodness from the yolk. Is there some food I can entice her with ?
im adding some photo, from the day after onward. I could not have taken any photos at the time as I was busy. And to be honest it was so scary to see , you really wouldn’t want to see it ! Any advice would be apreciated on how to get her to eat please !
Thankyou !

 

[Duckee]

Great job! Kuddos to you for keeping lil quacker alive
Your right about BYC! Ive used 10 year old posts to see me through some difficult situations. This site and its members are the best ever!!!
I dont know much about ducklings. I did go through a similar duckling hatch crisis once. If i recall correctly, he was slow to start eating & acting normal. Does it drink?

 

[gimmie birdies]

I dab a bit of flour to stop bleeding on shell, and you can even dab some on the outie bellybutton.

 

[Willawong Hill]

Does scrambled egg or egg and biscuit work for ducks or is that just chickens? Good luck with your little baby!