Helping chicks to hatch. Personal experience

Hi.
I recently had to incubate 17 shelduck eggs that were disturbed in straw bales so off I went and bought an automatic incubator and waited for a result

The first egg pipped but even after 12 hours nothing else happened so I opened a hole in the shell and revealed the chicks beak. I left it like this for another 6 hours and no more happened so I gently removed pieces of shell making sure not to damage the inner membrane in the air sac.

Over the next 3 or 4 hours I very methodically stretched back this membrane that contains a lot of blood vessels in the places where it looked like the blood had stopped flowing as the membrane was drying out and eventually after a lot of messing about the chick started to push its way out after I had made a hole big enough for it to get through.

This was as far as I went because I knew that if I had manually pulled the chick out it would of died as the chick is still attached to the shell by its " navel" I presume and the chick although it had a hole big enough to get out of did need that time for the navel to become detached from the shell by the drying out process in hatching BUT I had a healthy chick eventually that is doing well

As I was doing all this I was totally unsure if I was doing the right thing so when the next egg started pipping I left it to its own devices but the next morning it was dead due to suffocating on the inner membrane so over the next 2 days I repeated what I had done with the first egg and now I have 16 out of 17 eggs put in the incubator all hatched and chicks doing well.

I see many articles saying never interfere with a hatching egg but I think because I had maybe had the humidity in the incubator wrong then if I had not intervened I would not of had any chicks at all so in MY experience then a little help can be made if the chicks are not hatching as they should be BUT I must stress NOT to make the inner membrane bleed as it is hatching and certainly NOT to physically pull a chick out of a shell, Just assist in making the hole big enough for the chick to push its way out without damaging any of the inner membrane that still has blood moving through it.

Also in many articles it says if an egg does not hatch on its own then there is something wrong and the chick would die anyhow but this was certainly not the case for me and I lost a chick simply because I was too unsure if what I had done with the first one was correct. As it turned out it was but again I only assisted nature to take its course and was very careful not to force the chick to hatch prematurely.

I have attached a picture showing 1 chick just about to leave its shell but still attached to the shell. 1 chick about to start pushing and 2 chicks with the first holes made in the shell where I made sure the airways were clear to stop it suffocating from the mucus that killed the only chick I did not try to help.

I would just like to stress that this worked for ME but does not mean it would work for everyone else and I did not do anything at all untill the egg had been pipped for at least 12 hours.

Regards

In my incubator's manual it says that the humidity for duck eggs should be 84-86 degrees and 90-94 degrees when turning period is done. Yours appears to be reading 57. Maybe that's what was the problem?

Good Job QQ, Im in awe, ijust lost all my babies due to a sudden rise in temp ! So you took the initiative to do what seemed right ,and you were, and look at your reward! Such sweet little Duckies!
Do get that humidity thing figured out though!

I'm not saying it's wrong, I have no experience with ducks. I'm just stating what the incubator manual is saying.

Thank you for your comments and you are quite right it was my fault not taking enough care with the humidity settings. The incubator is a Brinsea octagon 20 which the manual quotes 45 to 55% humidity and 65% when hatching but I should of done more research on the net to see what other people reccomended and gone for an average of them all.

On hindsight then its now obvious that ducks will require a much higher humidity setting due to the nature and habits of the bird compared to other birds but it was whats called a " rush job" and I needed an incubator there and then just so I didnt waste the possibility of saving then and only knew 1 place where Icould get one immediately.

Today they had their first swim in a tin bath and boy did they love it.

Now my problem is to try and not let my kids get too close to them as I want them releasing into the wild when they are able to withstand normal conditions for Shelducks but the kids are already attached to them and planning their future so I can see trouble looming ! ! !

To think years ago my favourite pastime was duck shooting and now it is duck preservation at what seems to be any cost !

Guess thats what age does to one :)

Thanks again for the comments.

QQ

Quack,

If you try to incubate more duck eggs, you may want to consider using a spray bottle of water and misting every so often, to imitate the duck hen sitting on the eggs after coming from the water. I read that in a copy of Game Bird Gazette. Good Luck and WTG!!

Eric

I know this may sound strange but have you heard that baby ducks not raised by the mother should not be allowed in water...

The mother is the one who gives them the oil coating on their feathers
if she's not there ...no oil coating...........no waterproofing

I was told 6 to 8 weeks before swimming them