Welsh Harlequin - Full Assist Hatch - Advice?

[fulla03]

On my 3rd attempt at hatching duck eggs, I FINALLY got two to develop. Because I had two of nine take, and those two happened to be smaller than the rest of the eggs AND were slightly lighter in color, I convinced myself that I must have accidentally grabbed two chicken eggs. I started maintaining the humidity and temp based on chicken requirements. Once day 18 came, I candled one last time to make sure the egg looked like it was supposed to. It didn’t consume as much of the egg as it should have, but I figured I just didn’t know what I was looking at and still went into “lock down” mode. Day 21 came and went and finally, I got impatient on day 23 and candled again. It actually had grown and now consumed most of the egg. Now of course I thought “oh crap, it’s a duck egg.”

SO that is how we got to here:

Because I stopped turning the egg too soon, the duckling ended up malpositioned (feet over head) and pipped at the wrong end of the shell. We read as many articles as we could on what to do and almost 48 hours after the external pip, we decided to intervene. We first opened the end she had pipped to check position. Her beak was right at the end she had pipped. We decided to give her more time as she was still yawning/making chewing motions with her beak. After a couple more hours with zero progress, we decided to check the air sac to see if we could see blood vessels still intact in the membrane. We did, so we carefully put her back after using coconut oil to moisten the exposed membranes. Now she had openings at both ends and I was hoping it would be enough for her to push herself out when ready. At 5am, I randomly woke up and decided to check on her. She had pushed her little behind slightly out of the air sac end. She kept trying to push her self out more but it looked like she couldn’t get the leverage to get any further because of where her feet were. She was peeping like crazy at looked exhausted. I decided to switch to full assist as we were officially at 50+ hours past external pip. We carefully and slowly broke pieces off of the shell, trying to get her to do the rest of the work. Every time she would start to push and wiggle, she would get nowhere and then get tuckered out. Finally we decided to just break it all the way down the middle. At that point, she was able to stretch her legs and push out of the rest of the shell.
I felt like an on-call OBGYN helping to deliver a breeched baby. It was stressful and amazing.
We put her back in the incubator to dry out and we went back to bed. We are now about 10 hours post-hatch and she is still trying to get her strength up to stand/walk more. She has stood, but never for long. She gets tired so easy and takes frequent rests.
I want to make sure we are giving her the best chance at survival so I’m hoping there are some folks who have been through similar situations who can advise on her care over the next few days/weeks.

• How long until she is up and walking around more?
• What should the temp and humidity be now?
• Should I spend some time with her outside the incubator to provide comfort and reassurance? I feel bad she is alone, but she will have friends once she is older!
• How long does she need to stay in the incubator before i move her to a brooder

Any other tips or tricks? I’ve never seen a day old hatched duckling so I’m like “Is this what they’re supposed to look like? Or am I missing something vital?” I’ve attached a picture! I pulled her out a while ago just to check her over again and to encourage standing. She is back in the incubator now.

 

[Percipen]

Shes a cute little one! Congrats! Shes perfect! n my last batch, my first one to externally pip was the last of the 5 to fully hatch (assisted, of course). She was EXHAUSTED for the first day after she hatched. Couldn't stand, couldn't even swim. The second I put her in the warm water she fell asleep. I really didnt think she would make it, but a couple days after her hatch, she was up and running (and swimming) with the others.
If shes dry, she can go to the brooder at 90-95 degrees F. If she gets lonely when shes in the brooder, you can put a mirror in with her. She'll most likely snuggle up to it and it will be her best friend for the time being.
They dont always eat and drink in the first 24 hrs, since they just absorbed all of the nutritious yolk before hatching, but make sure you get a visual of her eating and drinking during that time, otherwise you might have to help her get eating and drinking in a day or so.