Back From The Brink

After another tense two days hatching, the last surviving duckling finally emerged. From the 10 viable eggs in the incubator,  8 eventually made it with two unable to break a hole in the shells.

At one point I thought there would only be 5 survivors as the others also were unable to make a hole in the shell. Having done some research, I decided to immerse the eggs in warm water for a minute or so, being careful to avoid water entering the egg. This has the effect of softening the membrane inside, allowing the ducklings to break through. 

Within a few hours 3 more managed to break out. The last one is a light coloured one similar to the sister of the mother duck.

These little beauties will have to be kept for many weeks since I was unable to catch the mother to rear them. I did try a surrogate mother by catching her sister, but she would not sit on the eggs, 

this would have reduced the time I will have to keep them before returning them safely to the river.