The sewn-up duck has healed well- she still has a barely perceptible limp, but I almost can’t tell her apart from the other adult ducks. Amazing!
Her adopted babies are the result of my next generation of duck egg incubation attempts. Still not good: 7 hatches out of 36 eggs! :-{ Again, I had a lot of eggs that appears to be fully developed, but never hatched.
So, I’m stumped- I think this incubator setup just isn’t good for ducks. I may wait until I have some chicken eggs, and see if it works better for them. It is a Little Giant brand.
And to be fair, the egg turner device inside is not recommended for duck eggs- though the instructions don’t say why. The eggs seem to fit in it fine, and it rotates successfully, so I assumed it would be OK. But, maybe it elevates the eggs too close to the heating element and that is causing problems (though my incubator is also equipped with a fan, which is supposed to keep air circulating and temperature even across the eggs). I don’t know! But it seems like it’s not worth the effort and all the wasted eggs to just get a half dozen babies in the end.
Here is a photo of “mama” and babies from yesterday-they are almost full size, but still have their baby down.