I somehow missed this post back then the ducks were hatching! Better late than never 🙂
I had one duck in an egg that just took his sweeet little time hatching. Problem was, the moms were stomping his egg and he wasn’t ready (note the bright red membranes). So I brought him in to keep an eye on him, using the heat from the brooder heat on him.
First coming in after I cleaned off the broken shell pieces:
A better look at him (no, I didn’t peel anything extra, this was the damage from the moms stomping him). I used some liquid coconut oil to moisten the edges of the shell where the membrances were to stop him from getting “shrinkwrapped” (membranes dry and trap the baby). Then I placed him in a small 1 quart cup with damp paper towels underneath and put him in the brooder directly under the light.
He stayed like this for 24 hours!
Caveat…always give them enough time to come out on their own. 24 hours seemed forever for this guy to just be sitting in the shell, but that’s how long it took before the veins in the shell membrane were gone! Had I tried to get him out too early, he would have probably died from blood loss. Make the conditions as good as you can and then wait…
Then…I looked over and he decided he’d had enough and gave a HUGE kick and tada!!! Freedom! I didn’t even have time to get a picture…
However, he wasn’t done yet since the umbilical cord area had not closed up (barely visible here).
I changed the paper towels and removed all the shell/membrane pieces and gave him some freshly dampened paper towels to lay on. I also placed a small amount of triple antibiotic ointment on the open naval area.
He stayed in the cup for another 12 hours until he was dry and the navel dried. The puppy pads were about to be changed in this picture…ducks are messy!
Once dry, a final inspection (including a sniff from Rudy, who never cared about baby birds oddly) and he was added to the group.
A few hours later…Can you tell which one he is? He ended up blending right in and had no issues!
