Dry Incubation and Dry Hatch (2017 Hatch-A-Long #2)

After the abysmal hatch rate last time, I decided to do dry incubating and dry hatching this time around. It will likely be my last hatch of the season as I had sold my white male, and my blue juvenile male is not of age yet to fertilize any eggs. (Unless my females have been retaining any sperm, in which case I might have one more hatch to go.)

Dry incubating and dry hatching is incubating/hatching without adding water. I’m pretty sure due to how humid we here on the southern shore of Long Island, that the reason why I had 4 beautiful, fully formed ducklings, but only one succeed in hatching out, is due to too high humidity in the incubator. While many sources say 50%-60% humidity, for duck eggs, I think that number spikes where I am (where it’s 40%-55% daily in the summer) when I add water. So the ducklings, when I had opened the non-hatched eggs, were swollen and didn’t have enough space to move around/pip.

I still misted this time around, but allowed the eggs to dry before replacing the incubator cover. I had placed 6 eggs in, 2 quit about a week ago (they were a little on the small side and upon closer inspection, had damaged air cells) while 4 are still moving around. Day 35 is August 12th, making lockdown in 4 days.

This time around, the air cells have been shrinking relatively evenly, which is a really good sign as last time, even towards the end, the air cells in the two that didn’t make it remained small (which is how you can tell there’s too much humidity). These still didn’t shrink as much as I would have liked, but the humidity in the house has been a constant 50% due to the weather, and I hesitate to place desiccants in the incubator for fear of harming the eggs. I will also make safety holes for the eggs once the first one has internally pipped, as I believe had I intervened with the previous hatch, more would have made it.

Today is Day 30 (8/7/2017), and it looks like one of the ducklings is attempting to internally pip. One seems to have quit as I don’t see any movement, while the other two are still moving. I’m hoping everything goes well and I will be monitoring very closely.

Day 31 (8/8/2017)–I opened up the two that had quit and found half developed embryos. Put them in the compost. Not sure why they stopped developing, but any chromosomal or genetic issues can cause them to be non-viable. One of them had a damaged air cell so I don’t know if that’s why there was an issue. The three moving eggs have drawn down their cell and have all begun to internally pip. The fourth one looks like it quit a few days ago–most likely will see a fully formed duckling that died for whatever reason. This is still a better hatch rate than the first time around, so I will continue to do dry incubation from now on. Considering a few of the eggs were also older (about 10 days before I set), time might have had something to do with it.

10:45am – The 4th egg is now moving so we have 4 set to hatch.

1:23pm – That 4th egg that I wasn’t sure whether or not was alive but showed some movement this morning suddenly had a bruise on the wrong side of the egg. I had heard somewhere that it could possibly indicate it is malpositioned and pipped on the wrong end. Then I candled it again there was no movement so I thought it was dead so I decided to open up the bruised end–lo and behold, it’s indeed malpositioned, the little bill had been chipping at the bruised part–BUT ALIVE.

If I waited a few more hours, it’s most likely it would have suffocated. As it is now, with a safety hole, it should be okay, but will require help in hatching the rest of the way, once it has absorbed everything.

Dabbed the exposed membrane with coconut oil to keep it moist and pliable–veins are still active so it will take probably another 24-48 hours for it to be ready to come out.

9:58pm – The saddest thing is coming home and finding out one of the other eggs attempted to pip in the wrong position as well (this is likely due to the fact that this year has been batch after batch of early hatchers, so I didn’t stop the egg turning in time. Next time I will stop turning the eggs day 25 and see if I get a higher rate) and died because I wasn’t here to make a safety hole. It must have died only an hour or so ago as rigor mortis has just set in. A “bruise” had appeared in the side of the eggs where it must have attempted to pip.

Then the panic begins because I made safety holes in the air cell of the rest and noticed not a SINGLE ONE had their bills in position and upon closer inspection, have all attempted to pip in places other than where they are supposed to–so the small telltale “bruises” on the side of the eggs (which I had first mistaken for discoloring/watermarks) are actually attempts to pip, and so I immediately made safety holes on the “bruises” and each one had their little bills there. They are now all breathing and chirping, thankfully, and once they absorb all the veins, I will help them out as to not risk anything this time around.

So what we learned this time around is A. Stop turning on day 25 for safety so they don’t get all turned around in their eggs–this is because it seems that although all sources point to muscovies hatching from 35-37 days, when temperatures are really stable, it seems they start hatching day 31. B. Don’t leave the house when you know they are starting to hatch. and C. If you see “discoloration” on the eggs in anywhere other than where the air cell is when you know they are going to start hatching, they have likely been malpositioned and immediate safety hole making is necessary if they’re going to survive.

I guess I’m not sleeping tonight.

8/9/2017
7:13am – After a fitful night’s sleep, dotted with periodic check ups, all three are still alive this morning, and two have begun to peep (the first, weakest egg is now the strongest loudest one.) Their veins have still not been absorbed, so I’m leaving them in their eggs until it has. I am expecting them to be have finished absorbing everything in 24 hours as I don’t want to rush them (they will also be unable to hatch on their own anyway so they’re stuck until I get them out, which is good because then they can’t prematurely hatch.)

I also opened them from the air cell end and peeled the hard white membrane away from the inner membrane so as to give them room and avoid shrink wrapping (which is where the white membrane peels away from the shell and wraps tightly around them, preventing them from having room to breathe and expand their rib cage.)

11:58am – Lost another duckling when I went to check up on them. Upon opening it up, it hadn’t even begun to absorb the yolk so not sure what was going on with it. The other two seem like they’re going strong, peeping at me and yawning. Hopefully these will make it.

8/10/2017
8:50am – I helped one of them out last night after everything was absorbed and the one thing I didn’t do that I probably should have was laid a towel down on the rack–I didn’t realize it was too slippery for it to get a hold of (it may be more geared towards chickens which have different feet) so it wasn’t able to learn how to walk or stand up overnight.

Hopefully it won’t have developed splayed legs because of that (this happens when newborn birds are on too slippery surfaces after hatching and can’t walk). It has started to move more normally on the towel which is a good thing.

I did dab its umbilica with Yunnan Baiyao (which is for wounds–helps heal very fast) as I was worried about the possibility of infection since it was protruding a little. This morning the umbilica had fallen off.

12:05pm – I just went to check on them and the second duckling had pushed itself out of the egg on its own. I guess it was ready!

I also dabbed its umbilical with Yunnan Baiyao.

Now they just have to fluff out and into the brooder they go.

The first one is still somewhat unsteady on its feet so I gave it some nutritional yeast in water and dabbed its bill in. It drank a little and is now resting with its sibling. Both look like… whites. There may be a possibility of some silver splash for both since the father was fully white and one of my duck hens is a silver, and white is incomplete dominant (so anything bred with a white will have mostly white feathers.)

8/11/2017
Both of them are doing fine, fluffed out and gaining balance on their feet. I had been a little worried for the first one because of not being on a surface it could grasp onto until I put the towel in but it’s improving at the same rate the other one is.

Both are eating and drinking (with nutritional yeast added in the water for extra niacin.)

I will sex them in a day or so when they’re a little stronger, most likely tomorrow, and hopefully they’ll be female. I have a feeling the second one is male only because its tail fluff is much longer, but time will tell.

I have officially moved them into the brooder.

9/21/2017

I thought I’d give an update on these two. They’re getting real big now and one, which I know for sure is a male, has now approached adult hen size. The other smaller one has received a new name. Eyebrows. You’ll see why in a moment. And yes, it’s symmetrical on both sides.