Duck still alive at 33 days, not muscovy

[MommaDarth]

The one you opened does not look like it was ready to hatch. If the other was developing at the same rate it will still be a few days. Was the mother a domestic duck?

I am 90% sure the mom was the domestic duck I found floating in the river. I am certain that the mom who laid the eggs was domestic because I saw her.

I don’t think there are any Muscovy ducks here, but even if there were, wouldn’t that duck look like other Muscovy ducklings? Grey or black bills right? Perhaps it is a hybrid situation? That coupled with a cheap incubator might explain it.

 

[Miss Lydia]

All you can do now is wait in the meantime get a safe mirror to put in the brooder so Lucky will have a buddy and a stuffed animal to cuddle with.
I am so sorry this happened sometimes those learning cures are sure heartbreaking.

 

[MommaDarth]

Update for anyone interested. My remaining duck was still kicking yesterday. It looked like it had internally pipped maybe 2 days ago and was struggling to externally pip so I very carefully put a hole in the air cell. Today I could smell it was bad. I opened and what I thought was a beak was actually a big blood clot, but just under the clot was the beak, so it was trying to internally pip and I guess it hit a vein or something and was dead by this am.

Sad ending, but I have learned so much from all of this. I am actually going to include a special lecture on duckling incubation in my Animal Behavior class this fall. I only wish I had the successful result to show, but I’ve got lots of good stuff from Youtube and here.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Very sorry

 

[shawluvsbirds]

Update for anyone interested. My remaining duck was still kicking yesterday. It looked like it had internally pipped maybe 2 days ago and was struggling to externally pip so I very carefully put a hole in the air cell. Today I could smell it was bad. I opened and what I thought was a beak was actually a big blood clot, but just under the clot was the beak, so it was trying to internally pip and I guess it hit a vein or something and was dead by this am.

Sad ending, but I have learned so much from all of this. I am actually going to include a special lecture on duckling incubation in my Animal Behavior class this fall. I only wish I had the successful result to show, but I’ve got lots of good stuff from Youtube and here.

I would guess incubation temp was way too low unfortunately.
Under the correct conditions they would've hatched before that many days.

 

[shawluvsbirds]

A little background. I live on an island and my backyard is the Detroit river. Momma duck laid her eggs in our driveway bushes (picture a circular driveway with bushes and trees in the middle). One day, maybe 4 days later, I noticed 2 of the 8 eggs were broken. I picked up the broken shells hoping to thwart predators.

The next day all but 3 remained. I walked onto my dock and found a dead momma floating (could have been a boat or overly amorous males that killed mom). At this point I review my nest cam a see mom never came back, but a raccoon did. At this point I gathered the remaining eggs and order an incubator from Amazon. It arrives the very next day and I put the eggs in it.

After I candled for the first time and saw 3 heart beats/pulsating beings I was hooked. Then one just stopped developing. It turned all weird and yellow inside. Discovered the float test and it failed so I chucked it. The remaining 2 seemed great until on day 28 nothing was happening. Anyway, now it’s day 34 and here we are. Just the one baby left.

For future references, I don't like float testing personally. Egg shells are pourous and it risks letting bacteria into the egg and chilling the egg too much. Plus sometimes there may be a tiny crack you didn't notice.
Once you know what to look for you can usually tell what you need to know by candling.