What happened to the blood veins in the eggs?

[Lacrystol]

Paris and Rocky are doing fine together. When Paris start messing with Rocky he gets her good! He doesn't back down to her at all. She did a little peck at his beak and he let her have it! That is one strong little duckling for nearly not even making it out of the shell 2 days ago. I did put the bandaids on his legs and he doesn't like it much but at least his legs are in the right position now.

Do you have them on Vitamins?

 

[cajuntc74]

OK, well 65 is to high, it's perfect for lockdown but not for day one up to lockdown. Chances are youll have sticky babies. So I'm taken right now you have one bator and different due dates? Best advice i could give you have this point, Dont' add water to it. Keep the humidity down, come hatching day there's some things you can do to help them escape. If you see ANY empty spacing at the smaller end of the egg, you have sticky babies.

Sticky babies are cause by Four factors, One - to high of humidity, which is the most likely. TWO - temp to low at some point, three - Low oxygen level, not even circulations processing in and out of the eggs. FOUR - dirty bator, bacteria!!

If they get sticky it's very hard for them to crack open that shell, usually you need to make a safe hole for them. I just help two babies escape from there shells because they were sticky. It's a horrible thing because this gooy stuff forms and it bascially sufficates them. Makes it almost impossible for them to get out, keeps them confined in the shell.

Yes I have eggs in there with different due dates. The reason for that was my complete lack of knowledge of the hatching process. When I first got the incubator I was putting eggs in there almost every day. Hussy would lay and egg and I would mark it and put it in there. I didn't realize that having them all hatch on the same day was so very important. I do now! I will empty the incubator of all the water. I have one duckling that should hatch on Thanksgiving Day....any advice for that one?
Also.. I would love to know... is day 28 the day they should actually hatch or the day they should start the initial pipping thing? So should they actually take up to 30 days to completely come out of the shell? That is one question I have asked Google about 100 times. It just says it takes 28 days for them to hatch. Should they be pipping around day 26 or 27?

I really need that second incubator...I have no idea what happened to that thing. I think it is working fine but needs to be calibrated correctly. I think my daughter may have pushed some buttons on it or something. It was working perfectly then BOOM! It is one of those yellow, no name brand, ones from China.. the instruction are horribly written and nearly impossible to understand. My husband is a brilliant man and he just shakes his head when he reads it too. The only name brand it has on the is HHD. It got very high reviews from every site I looked at that sells them. I got one from Ebay and it is still working perfectly and the other one we got from Amazon. I asked the seller on Amazon for a replacement and they said they would only offer a refund and wouldn't sell me another one. My husband said he wants to just get me another one ...any suggestions on which kind I should get? We don't have a fortune to spend but I want a nice one that is easy to use.
Thank you so much for your input! You and Orca are amazing and I appreciate you both!

 

[cajuntc74]

No..I just feed them...that is all..should I?

 

[Miss Lydia]

No..I just feed them...that is all..should I?

If you can get Poultry Nutri Drench TSC carries it it is a good vitamins to start ducklings on.. you just put it into their water according to direction on the bottle.

 

[Lacrystol]

Yes I have eggs in there with different due dates. The reason for that was my complete lack of knowledge of the hatching process. When I first got the incubator I was putting eggs in there almost every day. Hussy would lay and egg and I would mark it and put it in there. I didn't realize that having them all hatch on the same day was so very important. I do now! I will empty the incubator of all the water. I have one duckling that should hatch on Thanksgiving Day....any advice for that one?
Also.. I would love to know... is day 28 the day they should actually hatch or the day they should start the initial pipping thing? So should they actually take up to 30 days to completely come out of the shell? That is one question I have asked Google about 100 times. It just says it takes 28 days for them to hatch. Should they be pipping around day 26 or 27?

I really need that second incubator...I have no idea what happened to that thing. I think it is working fine but needs to be calibrated correctly. I think my daughter may have pushed some buttons on it or something. It was working perfectly then BOOM! It is one of those yellow, no name brand, ones from China.. the instruction are horribly written and nearly impossible to understand. My husband is a brilliant man and he just shakes his head when he reads it too. The only name brand it has on the is HHD. It got very high reviews from every site I looked at that sells them. I got one from Ebay and it is still working perfectly and the other one we got franother one. My husband said he wants to just get me anoom Amazon. I asked the seller on Amazon for a replacement and they said they would only offer a refund and wouldn't sell me ther one ...any suggestions on which kind I should get? We don't have a fortune to spend but I want a nice one that is easy to use.
Thank you so much for your input! You and Orca are amazing and I appreciate you both!

YES, the one that is coming, HOPEFULLY it is NOT sticky, again three days before due date candle him. Exspecially the smaller end, look for any empty space, the egg should be completely black at the smaller end. then ONCE a day spray him. Take a spray bottle, put warm water in it and spray him once a day until he starts to crack that shell open..

28 days is JUST a guide line, I have seen some get soooooo Impatient that they are out before there due date, I have seen some not get completely out until two to three days after. there's a lot of things that go on during the incubating process, you could have hot spots in your bator that causes them to come out before 28 days, you could have cold spots that will make them take there time.

You could have humidity issues that could speed and decrease hatching time. SO the 28 days is ONLY a guide line, I mean you don't want to wait 33 days and think OH he's coming, chances are by day 33 things aren't going to end good.

So we use that number simply as a guide line so that we know some time during that time we should see some action coming from the egg. OR if there's no action something went wrong.. Then we learn and make changes to improve our hatching rate..

I personally have a Hova Bator and I LOVE it, I have had it for years. Your best Bator in the world, and this is just my opinion is by making one. It's cheaper that way and if something goes wrong, YOU know how to fix it. This could be something you use JUST for the sole purpose of LOCK DOWN. I have THREE bators that we have put together that I use for Lockdown. This way if one of them decides to quite during lockdown, I have a replacement one. BUt for day one up until three days before lock down, I use my Hova Bator.
There are different opinions on them, but for the most part, they have pretty good reviews..

 

[Lacrystol]

No..I just feed them...that is all..should I?

Try to get some Poultry Drench or you can get some Vitiman B complex, human kind, drop about 3 pills in a quart of water.

 

[Lacrystol]

just to give you a future hatching advise, when you start to collect your eggs, collect them up to approximately 2 weeks, i wouldn't go any longer then that because they start to loose there fertility. rotate them Once a day and keep them in a cool place.

 

[cajuntc74]

We had a successful Thanksgiving Day hatch!!!!!!!!! This one is such a cutie pie! We named him Pumpkin! He came just as we finished up our Thanksgiving dinner! Paris and Rocky took to him perfectly! They all snuggle into a ball to sleep at night and when they walk around they walk in a row... largest to smallest! The three of them all play together so well and they are all eating so well. They even get along at feeding time.
I had to assist this one but it was an odd assistance...he was a "sticky chick" too but he was positioned perfectly inside the egg. He did his first internal and external pips perfectly and started to zip (all this over a long period of time, over 24 hours) I kept watch and listened for his little peeps. About 5 hours before he hatched completely I noticed him getting tired and weak. I took off the part of the shell where the air sac was being careful of the veins. I wrapped it in a damp, warm paper towel and left him to go finish up dinner. I periodically dampened the exposed membrane. So I sat there with another family member and we started at it for hours. Finally got his little foot out of the shell and braced himself for the last push. When he just most of the way out I could see that he was still VERY much attached to the egg. The umbilicus was still very thick and the blood vessel was still very thick and there was still quite a bit of yolk left in there too..SO I put him back inside the egg. I kept putting his rear end back inside the egg for about 2 more hours and finally he decided he had had enough of that shell and just really flopped around and escaped! I held my breath and wait for the blood to flow...but it didn't!!!!!!!!!!!! There were only 3 tiny spots of blood on the towel. He was preening before he even came out of the shell. He is a little whipper snapper!!! Very high energy little duckling!

I have 3 more due to hatch on the 30th...they are looking good and are in lock down....then 2 more to hatch on the 3rd of December..I am collecting Hussy's eggs every day for the New Years Hatching thing going on with BYC...after that.. NO MORE Hatching until Hussy decides to do it herself! I am going to have to brainstorm and figure out what to do with these guys! They are outgrowing their brooder...and I have no more "Indoor" options right now. WOW They poop A LOT!!!!!!!!!!!! I am sure they go more than my 2 big old hound dogs! It is constant bedding changing just to keep the smell down...

 

[Orca5094]

Yay, so glad your little Pumpkin made it out and is doing so well with the others already. Nice! Sometimes ducklings are good like that to newbies, but sometimes they are real terrors. Good to hear everyone is getting along and eating well.

We need a pic of everyone together!

And yes, ducklings are incredibly messy and poopy. They need their brooders upgraded fairly often since they grow so fast. What do you have them in now? This past Spring I had to separate my little ones into two groups after about a week because they outgrew their brooder and I didn't have anything any bigger. So they were half in a rabbit cage and half in a big plastic bin. Luckily, it was late Spring and nice and warm, so I was able to move them out to the Duck House (MUCH bigger pen space there) at two weeks old. Not sure that's an option for you at this time of year, though?

Good luck with the next group, and keep us posted! ^-^

 

[cajuntc74]

Thanks Orca! They are in a standard sized storage tote! WAY too small for the 3 of them. I am brainstorming what my options are. They are REALLY smelling up the house here! It is like every 2 or 3 hours of having to change out their bedding. By morning.. OMG! PEEEE UUUUU....hubby says..."Tracy... you gotta do something about that.. and fast!".. I have no idea what to do. My neighbor gets little chicks from the mail and he has a big trough sized bin he puts all his babies in. He said I could put them in his shed and just come over there and visit them and take care of them... but that is just too far...we like to love on them throughout the day. We would miss them! If I HAVE to.. I might do that but I want to try other things first. They are our babies...we want them here with us. I keep thinking I would sell the ducklings but I just don't see that happening...lol.. I think If I hatched 100 of them I would find SOME reason why we have to keep ALL of them. I am turning into the "duck lady" instead of a "cat lady". Oh geez!