URGENT- URGENT What should I do with this egg when the ducks are not sitting on it?!!

[2Myanimals]

My duck has been sitting on her eggs for quite a while and had 2 ducklings 2 days ago. Last night to this morning, the third one was born but they pecked it to death!! Now they have given up on sitting on the 4 remaining but one of them is cracked AND I candled it and it is moving. What should I do? The egg is cold and when I force the duck to go inside she just stands over them and does not sit:-( Please help.

 

[Amiga]

Set up an incubator. Some ducks will hatch, then kill the ducklings. I don't know why.

 

[Ellaluvsbirds]

An incubator is your best bet for this situation. You will want to keep a close eye on the hen and her remaining ducklings. Make sure that there is enough of humidity in the incubator.

 

[2Myanimals]

Don’t have one and the stores are closed now. Is there a homemade one? The other ducklings are doing great and the moms are very protective of them. I wonder if the couple of days of delay made them think this one was not theirs and if this one living in my shirt as an egg will be mistreated:-(

 

[Amiga]

Yes, you can rig something up. Let me look around quick.

Take a look at this.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/821187/need-emergency-diy-incubator-help-please

If you have a heating pad, a food grade plastic bin or styrofoam cooler, you should be able to set something up for overnight, anyway. PetDuckBoy years ago hatched his Pekin using a bucket and a light bulb.

This looks useful

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/georgys-egg-incubator

 

[Amiga]

Any progress?

 

[2Myanimals]

Hi. So this morning when nothing was progressed I decided to help out. From my candling (bear in mind I am new to this all) I determined that it was malpositioned since the hole seemed to be JUST below the air cell. I made the hole a bit bigger and tore the membrane just slightly. I was able to coax the neck and the rest sort of came out. I stopped when I though there was a bit of yolk at the very end which is NOT a good thing. I put a heat lamp out at 2 am already and had been wetting a paper towel for 6-7 hrs before doing the emergency ‘c-section’. Every 30 minutes damped the towel and kept the area at my body temperature (since my thermometer broke too!!). At this point, the duckling is all out but still attached to the egg yolk (which is about maybe 1/8 of the yolk size) and been wetting the paper towel under the lamp. She has been moving a lot more AND just noticed its eyes are open. As if this was not enough, when I went to check up on the moms and their two ducklings, I saw a BRAND new duckling just out of the egg. I took her right away since the moms killed the one born yesterday. She is in my shirt right now but plan on keeping it under the lamp at night. Any suggestion for the new one that is in my shirt? What do you think the prognosis of my ‘miracle’ chick? I feel that the one in my shirt is here to keep the miracle one company but maybe I am hopeful too much Any and all suggestions are appreciated. OH btw, there were 2 other eggs that was left behind, one of them has just a slight movement. I think I should get an incubator. Anyone you can suggest? I don’t have a tractor company near by btw.​

 

[Amiga]

The links I gave were suggestions for setting up an incubator. You could call around to feed stores, some hardware stores carry them.