If You Were Thinking About Hatching a Duck Egg...

As a child, I vividly remember hatching my first duck egg.

His name was Gilbert. And he was adorable.

I used one of those little plastic yellow incubators; the high tech method of a 10 watt lightbulb and a little foil.

I put X's and O's on Gilbert's egg and turned him daily...when I remembered.
I'm not sure I knew what "humidity" meant and I certainly didn't "candle" him to check on his progress.

But despite all my now-known-hatching-errors....on Easter morning...he pecked his way through and allowed me to experience a near perfect hatching; it felt like I'd witnessed a miracle...

So absolutely incredible, to see this fuzzy, yellow duck emerge from a tiny egg after 28 days of a little warmth and rotation.

Jason also hatched ducks as a child and remembers them snuggling under his shirt on a warm sunny day while he relaxed in the lush summer grass.

Again...a very ideal experience.

So we decided last November that in the spring it would be fun to let the kids have their own hatching experience.

But Gilbert was actually the only egg I'd ever hatched.

And if I'm being honest...my mom just brought over a photo from that year's science fair....and my project board said "How to hatch a CHICKEN egg".

So, I'm not sure how all that went down so well.

But--it worked--and it was amazing--and Jason and I wanted the kiddos to experience that same amazement.

So, when my mom asked for Christmas gift ideas for Cavan, I told her about a site online where you can order one of those exact same yellow plastic incubators that I'd used as a child.
And so began the Chuppies duck-hatching experience....

In January and February Colson and Cavan would periodically ask when we were going to hatch the eggs. I told them it'd be a while, sometime in the spring.

But near the end of February, we were getting desperate for some new and exciting kindergarten show & tell items, so I let Cavan dig out the incubator and take it to school.

At pick up time though I had an interesting conversation with Mrs. A, his kindergarten teacher.

Mrs. A: "We loved Cavan's incubator...and those eggs....how fun that you let him even bring in the eggs."

Me (with a look of confusion): "What eggs?"

Mrs. A: "The 4 little eggs in the incubator..."

Me: "But we didn't put any eggs in the incubator yet."

Mrs. A: "Hmmnn...yes...there were definitely 4 little eggs in the incubator."

My first thought was that Cavan probably took 4 eggs from the fridge for dramatic effect (that would be a very "Cavan" thing to do).

But to my dismay, when I looked closely, the incubator box was covered in bold type that read:

INCUBATOR WITH FOUR QUAIL EGGS FOR HATCHING BY DECEMBER 17

At home, I carefully disposed of the tiny spotted quail eggs, that Cavan and Colson had known were in the incubator ever since Christmas. I had wondered why they kept asking when the eggs would hatch. I felt a little guilty; careless neglect that led to the demise of 4 tiny quail babies. But then realized that Cavan hadn't even opened his gift until past the hatch date. And it did explain the strange odor that had been coming from our school-room closet.

So Hatching Attempt #1 never really was attempted.

On to Hatching Attempt #2: My friend Becky discovered a program through the OSU extension office--a community outreach program--where they will loan you an incubator and curriculum and give you chicken or duck eggs so that your kids (or your classroom--if you are a teacher) can experience a hatching. So once again....we started getting excited about the possibility of hatching eggs. We took the little yellow incubator out and started reading the directions.

Of course, I quickly grew way TOO excited and after stumbling across an inexpensive auction of duck eggs on ebay...I won the 4 eggs and couldn't wait to get started! But when they arrived, the nice ebay lady sent me "bonus" eggs, so I found myself with a dozen fertilized duck eggs and an incubator that would only hold 2 eggs. This of course made is necessary to "win" another incubator off ebay so that I would have a spot for the other 10 eggs. So, we started 2 eggs in the little yellow plastic incubator and began the 28 day countdown.

Well, the second incubator was a bit larger and more high tech and it took so long to arrive, that I decided I couldn't use the 10 ebay eggs so I stuck them in the garage where I hoped the kids wouldn't find them. Meanwhile, Becky attended the duck-egg-hatching-training-class on behalf of us both and my new plan was to use the dozen duck eggs that she was getting from the OSU extension office. Turns out, they don't give out as many duck eggs, so Becky took the 5 or 6 that would fit in her incubator and I took home 3 and started them in the ours.

And so began Hatch Attempt #3.

On a last minute whim, I decided to throw in my remaining ebay duck eggs because even though they were at least 10 days old, I'd read that ducks sometimes spend over two weeks producing a clutch of eggs before they will start the hatching process, so it at least postponed the disposal issue and I figured why not?

Back to Hatch Attempt #2:

While the larger incubator could function much more on it's own, our little, yellow pastic incubator required much more human intervention. So, for the next 28 days, we turned the eggs, tried to watch the humidity, fussed with the foil to keep the temperature correct. And during a 4 hour long power outage, Cavan even played "mommy duck" to the eggs and kept them under his shirt and several blankets in an attempt to keep them warm.

We candled the eggs (more than we should have) because it was so fun and exciting to see the little ducks bobbing around inside. More than once, you would have found 5 of us, crouched in our dark downstairs bathroom, huddled around a flashlight and a duck egg, hoping to see a foot press up against the shell or a duck bill push through into the air sac.

But now comes the awful part of the story....I'm just going to warn you ahead of time....Hatch Attempt #2 did not end well. It was nothing like the picture-perfect hatchings that Jason and I experienced as children.

One of the 2 eggs, never really developed....eventually when we candled that egg, it became clear that the baby duck wasn't growing, so we removed that egg from the incubator and all our hope for a successful Hatch #2 rested on that last tiny egg left in the incubator.

On Friday, April 23th, the duck finally "pipped" through (which means he cracked the egg and a tiny bump appeared where he was trying to get out). But after 48 hours of knocking his egg tooth in an attempt to free himself, the duckling still hadn't made much progress. I realized that he'd missed the air sac and was "pipping" in the wrong spot. On Sunday, April 25th, I tried to moisten the membrane around his escape route because as the egg dries out, it becomes more and more difficult for the duck to hatch. I'd read that you could "help" them out that way.

On Monday, April 26th, the little duck finally came out of his egg, but he was very weak and his stomach looked kind of deformed, almost like his intestines were protruding.

Can I just be honest?

It was awful.

He was so so cute and chirping to me...but just lying tragically on his side.

Then I noticed that his belly button was still connected to the egg membrane (it should have been dried up and separated by then).

I quickly googled what to do when "hatched duck is still attached to egg" and the general consensus was that either I had to let him die or I could snip the cord where it attached to the shell. I'm still not sure this was good advice. Looking back, almost every "expert" also said that if a duckling doesn't complete the hatch on his own, he probably won't make it.

But I carefully sterilized some sharp scissors and then gently clipped the cord next to the shell membrane. Blood started pouring out and flooded the bottom of the incubator.

I really thought I was either going to pass out or throw up.
I could tell that the duckling was growing weaker and weaker and that I was watching him die.

After he stopped breathing, I carefully wrapped up the incubator...couldn't bring myself to take him out and decided the small, yellow, plastic incubator would need to double as a casket for the little guy.

I dreaded telling the kids what had happened. On the way home from school, in the car, the boys told me they really wanted to see what the duck looked like. Laura told me she DID NOT want to see what he looked like.

But I understood the boys' desire because I had wanted to see what he looked like too; otherwise, it just kind of felt like the whole thing wasn't real...like there never really was a little duck in that duck egg. I gingerly unwrapped the incubator and showed the boys. They both grew pretty quiet and serious.

Then Colson said: "His eye just moved."

I practically yelled: "No it didn't !"

I quickly sent the boys inside and took a closer look....his eye did kind of move. I felt horrible.

After all our reading about ducks and imprinting, I imagined him looking at me as his "mom".

It made me feel sick.

So this time, I watched until I was absolutely positively sure that he wasn't breathing anymore.

And that was how Hatch Attempt #2 ended.

Meanwhile...all this time Hatch Attempt #3 had been progressing in our larger incubator. We candled the eggs and checked for growth on the appropriate days, took out the eggs that weren't fertilized, or that didn't progress, did a better job of monitoring the humidity and were very thankful for the automatic egg turner.

And prayed. I know it may sound ridiculous to pray about a duck. But I did pray. I prayed and asked God for at least one of our last 5 eggs to make it.

April had been a bit of a gloomy, hard month for our family aside from the tragic hatching.

Sickness had cycled through our crew several times and April 25th was the 2nd anniversary of our daughter Selah's death. It was just a heavy couple of weeks and the death of our duckling only added to the sadness.

So here's where you want to read about our successful Hatching Attempt #3.
But I can't give you the end to the story yet. And I know sometimes that more is learned through sadness and reality than through picture perfect success.

I will share though that several of our eggs "pipped" through yesterday and this time it seems to be going much better. They came through in the right spot and at least one is chirping and making good progress. We're doing a better job of keeping up the humidity and leaving everything else alone.

And really, this is all part of the hatching experience.

There is no 100% guarantee. When you think about it, it's amazing if it ever all comes together successfully.

I debated about whether or not to post this before or after Hatch Attempt #3 is complete. It'd be nice to have a happy ending to share. But honestly, if this doesn't end well...I'm not sure I'd ever get around to posting.

So--instead--I'm dragging you into the experience a bit. Listen carefully to the video...you can hear them chirping. Even with the potential for sadness, this has been an important experience.

Important does not always equate...fun.

But "important" does mean....good conversations about life and death and growth and sadness and birth and loss and joy and God.

I'll update sometime in the next 48 hours.

Hopefully with great news and lots of baby ducklings.




See the following post below for a HAPPY update!!!  Actual hatching video clip...

http://thechuppies.blogspot.com/2010/05/baby-duckling-update.html