HA! I have no idea! I am sure all the trouble I have had so far was my fault and the way I did things. I had no idea what I was doing. This has been a crash course for duck hatching that is for sure. I did it all wrong and since the beginning I have been running my self crazy trying to keep the ones alive that had already started developing. I started out in a tote with a light in there and a glass of water. That was too difficult to maintain the temperature. One day the temp was too low.. another morning it was like 109 and I had no idea how long it had been that high...then there was no way to know for sure what the humidity level was. My hubby felt bad when I lost the first few eggs.. so he bought me an incubator..then my neighbor bought me one too...so I had them all set like they should be.. THEN one of the incubators completely died! So it was back to putting them ALL back in one incubator and everything has just been stressful. One baby died because it was in a double yolked egg and one died early on and the other must have gotten poisoned by the dead one in the egg with it. It died just a few days before hatch day. Then the other one that died in the last hatch.. his poor belly didn't grow together and his insides were outside. Most of the others died around the first week and some eggs were not fertile at all. The other thing is that these eggs are from my duck..Hussy is her name...she was only born in May herself. We picked her and her mate up from our local feed store. When I got them we thought they were Runners. They stood so straight and tall...and they looked just like our white runners we used to have...then when we got them home their tummy's leveled out with the ground and I didn't realize even what they were until they got much old. I read that you should not incubate their eggs for the first year!!! I have 3 perfect babies...and only 3 really sad losses. All the rest died very early, before you could even tell what was in there. Just the typical blood ring formed. ANYWAY! That is why my eggs are strange...lol... because of my impatience and inexperience. NOW I have just moved on to a NEW kind of inexperience.. what the heck to do with the sweet, cute, adorable and STINKY ducklings that are taking over my house...lol.. How long until they can go outside? My hubby is going to build me a box.. line it with hay and put a heat lamp in there and cover it. Will that suffice after they are about 2 weeks old? Paris is getting HUGE...and she is peeping non stop.. she wants to be held ALL the time..and fed constantly....and I do believe that Paris..the oldest one.. thinks that SHE is the mother to the other 2. And I think they agree with her. She is the leader...Paris lays down and they lay down... Paris gets up..they get up and they are on her feet all day. Anyway...thanks for letting me write this NOVEL today...
Wow, I had forgotten some of the drama! lol! And nice to get some more background info, so I enjoyed your little novel. Is this box he's making going outside in your duck house? Because that sounds pretty good to me! That's basically what I did out in my duck house, I made them a really big brooder out there with a heat lamp in one corner (which they never used or wanted to be around after a week old, but they were spring babies so it was warmer then). I think yours will probably need it longer since it is basically winter now. How cold is it where you are? So yeah, it depends on how cold it is where you are and how warm you can keep their brooder out there. They shouldn't be outside in the weather for too long at a time at 2 weeks old of course, but short periods out with you should be ok if it's not too crazy cold. Not sure what your nighttime duck house situation is, but a brooder out there should be fine at 2 weeks old if you can keep it warm enough for them. Basically, if they are always huddled together under the heat lamp, it's too cold. If they're as far away from it as they can get (or are panting), it's too hot. What are you going to cover the box with? Wire? Just make sure they get plenty of air flow so you don't get a build up of ammonia in their brooder from their droppings. And of course be very careful with the placement of their heat lamp that it can't set any hay or other bedding on fire. So cute that Paris is mothering the other two like that! They do need constant food at this age since they grow so fast, so Paris is just being a normal ravenous duckling. ^-^
Actually... I am going to have him put it on my back porch! I will have to take pictures of the duck houses we have for Hussy and Afflack (the mom and dad ducks). My hubby built them houses and they are quite big. They have only 3 sides and the top. So I scooted large dog kennels in front of the front of the door so they can sit outside or inside their house. Then we got the 2 Muscovy ducks and he built them the same kind of house. But now I am out of dog kennels! LOL.... he is going to build me a barn to put everyone in. Hopefully it will be done in the next few weeks. We have 3 Egyptian Goslings, one male and 2 females. We have 2 Muscovy ducks and I am sure they are both males since they are trying to "get with" Hussy these days. And we have 2 Pekin ducks which are Hussy and Afflack. And 2 dogs and 5 rabbits. AND 3 little ducklings. We have the goslings in a makeshift pen I made for them out of fencing and trees and 2X4's. It has held up quite nicely for them. They only go in the pens at night and they roam freely in the back yard during the day. It is a little tricky to get the geese up at night. They only go to bed for my husband. When I try to put them to bed they run in all different directions but when John puts them up for the night they just stroll right on into their pen and lay down. Stinkers! If John doesn't get the barn built in time he will have to just make another house and buy another dog kennel for the ducklings. Anyway, the babies will go on the porch for the rest of the Winter or until the barn is built. He is going to make separate stalls for each of the animals. The box he is building is quite large. One half of the top will be hinged with wood and the other half will be hardware cloth with a hinged frame. I live in Eastern Georgia on the SC boarder. This year has been amazingly warm so far. We have only had 2 nights so far below freezing. It is 65 degrees outside right now and it is 6:30pm. I think the lows are in the upper 40's. Last year at this time we were freezing! Crazy warm weather is keeping the yellow jackets and ants moving...and the snakes. It is nice, warm sunshine and in the 70's and 80's by the end of February or the beginning of March so we have very short Winters here. I did prop the air sac end of the 3 eggs up and the babies were still pecking around in there. On 2 of them, you can see the gray spot appearing where they are pipping inside.. The last one.. you can see it trying so hard to pip. You can see the movement in the air sac but it's beak is not making it all the way to the shell. I wonder if it's leg is over it's head like Rocky's was. That is what kept that little one from being able to do the whole twisting in the egg thing. I was thinking that once the others finally get their external pip or hole I would try to make a little hole at the end of the air sac to see what was going on with that one. They have been in there the exact time in the exact same conditions.. They have been turned the exact same times and directions since they went in there. I have kept them sectioned off into groups in the incubator so I would know which ones were due to hatch next. I put them in rows. Anyway, do you think that is a good idea to do that? The others, like I said, have the bruises or whatever you call it on the outside of the shell so I can see exactly where their holes will be but the last one is not quite making his beak all the way to the shell...it is VERY active in there...I am getting nervous.. can you tell? Anyway ..here are some new pictures of Paris, Rocky and Pumpkin..Large, Medium and Small...they are so funny. And my daughter Sam
Ok Orca and Lacrystol....the situation this morning is as follows: The 3 eggs that were supposed to hatch yesterday...NONE of them were able to make that external pip. SOOOO.. I made a hole and took the air sac end of the shell and membrane off exposing the babies. ALL THREE are peeping...BUT all three are completely shrink wrapped! The entire inner membrane has pulled away from the she and is completely wrapped around the babies. There is a ton of yellow juice seeping up around the babies. But the membrane is VERY dry like rice paper or something. When I took the shell off the white membrane was very dry and flaky. I managed to stay clear of any blood vessels. These poor guys are wrapped up tight like a Christmas gift! I dampened the stuff that is surrounding the babies. The membrane surrounding the babies beaks has tiny blood vessels in it and it is all yellow. I took the end of my tweezers and just pushed that part back to expose the beaks so they could breathe. The one that was having the hardest time last night is not as active as the other two and his beak is WAY back inside the shell. I took my flashlight and looked all around inside the egg and it really looks more like a ping pong ball inside of and Easter egg. I am guessing that this happened because I lowered the humidity so much once little Pumpkin hatched. SOOO That was at 6:30 this morning. If I am not mistaken, and correct me please if I am wrong, they need 12 hours with that hole there? I should keep them moist with like a Q-Tip or maybe a mist every now and then.. and then WAIT? I am going to take pictures so I can show you what I have so far. They are so very tightly wrapped in that stuff.. but there is still a bunch of blood vessels that I couldn't see when I candled them.. I am guessing that is because the membrane had pulled away from the egg. Only 2 more nightmare eggs to go after these 3...THEN I will set that incubator up correctly and put my eggs in there, all at the same time, for that New Year's Day hatching thing going on with BYC...I am supposed to put those in on the 4th of December. THEN I AM DONE with this! We are going to let Hussy sit on her own dern eggs! By the way.. why in the world is my crazy duck still laying eggs? It is December and like a clock work.. she is laying them , one every single day....I have the problem that I have a hard time just tossing the eggs. And I am not sure what else to do with them. I cannot cook with them because ..well.. ya know... Anyway.. I am going to go take a picture....
In the pictures .. the one on the far right is the one that had the most trouble I think. It never quite got his beak all the way to the shell. He is set back further in the egg than I think it should be. I am sure you can see how that white membrane is hugging them.... What's next.. they are all still peeping..the middle baby is the most active.. This one.. that stuff keeps sticking to his beak.. but there are too many blood vessels to really do too much. I took my tweezers and pushed it back a little but it just fell back down. This is the baby on the FAR RIGHT in the other pictures. This is the baby in the middle This is the baby on the FAR LEFT... SUGGESTIONS? ADVICE? What do I do now? I don't think they could ever get out of this mess alone..
At three weeks they will get there big boy feathers, once they get those, you can start training them to go outside. I usually let mine outside all day and at night they will come to the house in which I will keep mine in the house for bed time. Once they get the feel of things, they will want to be outside pernenantly.
