![]() At that point they had NOT, but the ducklings needed air, so while following an assisted hatching guide I VERY carefully made a slight hole in the inner membrane where the tip of the beak was. ![]() I then gently wet the inner membrane with warm water so that I could see if the blood vessels had receded. I started by using a pair of tweezers to chip off a small piece of shell, and peel back the white outer membrane. Before it hatches the blood in the vessels recede into its body, and it absorbs it's yolk sack. The inner membrane holds all of the chicks blood vessels. The outer membrane is white and the inner membrane is clear. Beneath the shell there are an inner and an outer membrane. My goal was assist as minimally as possible because more harm then good can be done, and it is VERY easy to accidentally kill them. I made the decision to attempt to perform an assisted hatch.Īfter doing a lot of reading, and watching some YouTube videos I was confident enough to begin. At that point I realized my options were to assist, or let them die. I waited 6 more hours and upon checking them again I found that no progression had been made and I couldn't hear them pecking as much. I spritzed the membrane with a bit of warm water with the hope that the ducklings would be able to break through the softened membrane on their own. Looking through the incubator I noticed that the exposed outer membrane underneath the shell had begun to turn brown because it had dried out. I was particularly concerned about one egg who had pipped into the wrong end of its shell because I knew that meant that the duckling had not been able to access it's air cell as the other ducklings had. Well, a day later there was no progress which meant that they were running out of air in there. I knew that with 24hours their bills should break through the hole completely to allow air in, and slightly enlarge the hole. Their 1st pips cracked the shell but did not penetrate all the way through the shell. "Pipping" refers to the 1st poke in the the shell. Three eggs pipped on the morning of day 26. It is important to remove eggs that you are positive have went bad due to the risk of them exploding and contaminating the healthy eggs with bacteria! Some people choose to candle their eggs at day 25 but since I could see my eggs wiggling I knew they were all still alive.īy lockdown I had 4 remaining eggs. If you are unsure if a death has occurred, and the egg does NOT smell leave it be! (I made ONE terrible misdiagnosis at the 9 day candling, and was beyond horrified to discover I had accidentally killed an embryo). Later deaths are a bit harder to distinguish but the most obvious sign is a very foul smell, and lack of blood vessels. The bottom image shows a blood ring, a tell tale sign of early embryonic death. The prominent blood vessels are clear and the dark spot is the developing chick. I candled my eggs by shining a flashlight into the bottom of them while in a dark room. Air cell growth should be marked with a pencil at each candling. Egg CandlingĮgg candling involves shining a light into the eggs to check for fertility, bad eggs, and air cell growth. I stopped turning the eggs on the night of day 25. I penciled an X and an O on the opposite side of the eggs to ensure that I turned them correctly. It is important to always turn them an odd number of times per day so that a different side of the egg faces up each night. Eggs must be turned a minimum of 3x per day. However, if using an automatic turner, it is crucial to place the eggs with the pointed end down so that the large end which contains their air sac faces upward. Another reason I did not use an automatic egg turner was because duck eggs tend to do better without them. During the set which is counted as day one, the eggs must NOT be turned, and the temperature should not be adjusted. The eggs must first be set for a full 24 hours in the incubator. Still air models require a slightly higher temp then forced air models which should be kept at 99.5 up until the last 3 days of incubation. I started with 7 duck eggs which I brought home after I had insured that my incubator had stabilized, and was maintaining a constant temp of 101.5. As the chart shows, duck eggs require 28 days of incubation.
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