Today was the day that we thought they might start to hatch, according to our educated guess. This morning, before breakfast, we opened up the incubator and sure enough, little "pips" have appeared! Right on time. You have to look close to see them, but almost all of the eggs have them this morning. ("Pip" is when the duckling makes the first cracks from the inside of the shell. ) If you look very closely at the egg, you can see an outward dent on the side. That is the pip.
In order to keep the eggs "upright" while they were incubating, we had put some big bubble wrap underneath them. They needed to keep their air pocket (which is in the wide end of the egg) up. Once the ducklings hatch, they won't be able to stand up and walk well, so I had to pick up the eggs to remove the bubble wrap from underneath them. Even the eggs that had not "pipped" yet were wiggling. All ten eggs appear to be hatching. From everything we have read, the hatching process is difficult for ducklings and they don't always all survive even the incubation process. Now don't get me wrong, I don't really want any of the little guys to not make it. But I think ten baby ducks is a lot... even for a mama duck!
What have we gotten ourselves into?? Yikes!
Stay tuned for updated pictures and video.
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