Set eggs 4/6, EDD 4/27 & 4/28...wanna hatch with me??

[loopy12]

Day 27 here.
Now have 7 out of 12 pipped now.
Am a bit worried though - the first two that pipped 34 hours ago are still just sat there pipped.
Being my first time with duck

but am worried about them getting dried out.
I now they're not due to hatch until tomorrow, but seems a long time to be pipped for. None of my chicks went more than 14 hours from pip to zip.

Annarie: you're a duckaholic, you'll know...is this normal?


Come on duckies...

 

[wyo-helpmeet]

Quote:

 

[loopy12]

Make that 9 pips!
All the pekins have pipped but only 2 cayugas.

I'm particularly worried about the cayugas - both those 2 that pipped a day and a half ago but also the 3 that haven't pipped.
The 3 that haven't pipped had really odd shapped air cells from rough shipping

I really thought there'd be progress by this morning

 

[wyo-helpmeet]

make that 4, SQUEEE!!! I got pics of the 2 white ones, but then my batteries died, so I'm charging the batteries. We have 2 little white ones & 2 little black ones, already fluffed out. Bestill my heart they are so precious!!!

 

[wyo-helpmeet]

 

[wyo-helpmeet]

I do believe we're done. 3 appear to be duds, 1 quit mid hatch

but we have 5 beautiful babies. 3 are almost white, 1 is black & the other I thought was black is actually brown. Beautiful!

The last white one is almost dry.

 

[loopy12]

Awww...more pics please

I now have 10 pips, and a few eggs have dropped a bit of eggshell on the floor now as the pips have enlarged and opened into holes rather than cracks but still nothing that could be called zipping. Argh. Is soooo slow compared to chicks! I am thinking we won't actually see them hatch until tomorrow and the following day.

 

[wyo-helpmeet]

I have a friend coming over later (the gal I got the eggs from- we're grammas, LOL) after she gets off work, and will get more pics then, definitely. Momma's being so good. She's lightly pecking at them when they get out from under her & she's lightly pecking at me now that they are hatched

I can still get in there & mess with them, and she doesn't seem to mind TOO horribly. She's definitely not being mean to me, but letting me know they ARE HER babies

I can't wait til your duckies hatch!!! I can't wait to see pics. I want ducks, but living where we live, I've got my hands full with 10 layers, a rabbit duo, new baby chicks, 6 baby bunnies & 20 meat birds/6 layers/3 poults on their way. Oh & the garden, LOL On about .15 of an acre.... Maybe one day!

 

[loopy12]

how do you fit it all in? Do you have neighbors?
Well I say that but we used to have 60x40ft walled in garden in England and still had a small veggie garden, some chickens and a pond which wild ducks would visit. I used to rush outside with treats everytime the chickens made a noise for fear the neighbours would complain.

We're just spoilt now with 7 acres plus a 10 acre field but the animals don't use that much of that space even though they free range.

There's a good chance that DH will getting a job back in England later this year and I'll have to give up all this space, move back to a postage stamp garden and start all over again and worse still might not get to see my chicks and ducklings get their full plummage and egg laying

Will have to see what happens. Sigh.

 

[wyo-helpmeet]

AW! I hope you get to keep everything you've worked for. If not, I know you'll do a fantastic job with new things.

We're hoping to start looking for land this fall. We do have neighbors, but I talked to the ones that were here when we decided to get the chickens last year. All of them were either ok with it, or grew up around chickens, so were accustomed. I can't have a rooster. Some of the neighbors buy my eggs, when we have excess. We've had to get very creative with our space. I think the only thing I'm not thrilled with is not being able to have a rabbit commune, LOL. They are in 3'X3' hutches though, so they still have a bit of space. The coop & the rabbit hutches are built inside a shed. We just extended our garden for this year & IIRC, we're up to 1k' or so in gardening space. We have one of those really long swing sets, and we moved that along the garden fence, and moved some of the fencing to keep the coldframe, compost etc so the dog can't get hold of it. I posted a LOT of pics on my blog from last year. Where the swingset it, we turned it perpendicular, and now the fence goes across where it was & meets the other garden plot. There are a couple pages in that category, so you have to scroll down and you may need to click on older posts toward the bottom to see what I'm talking about. We did a lot of vertical growing to fit everything. My tomato plants last year alone totaled 51 in 13 different varieties. It's definitely a lot of planning & work, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.