Help me please

[melanied]

I've been incubating this duck egg and it should about day 22-26 yesterday there was significant movement but when checking today I haven't noticed any movement and it just looks odd. Duckling doesn't look as big as it should. This is My first time hatching ducks. Is this duckling dead ?

Please help i don't want to terminate this egg if im not 100% sure it's dead.

 

[chrismahon]

Day 22-26 is too vague. At day 22 it may be OK, at 26 it is probably dead. I did open an egg at day 25 and killed the chick in it, so leave it longer. I must add that moving the egg is likely to kill the chick in it anyway. The chick will be trying to manouvre to pip and it only has limited energy to do that. Moving the egg will disorientate it and it may not have enough energy to re-align itself, so if you have candled it previously after day 18 that may have killed it? Certainly after any very careful candling the egg needs to be returned to the same position using the mark initially put on the egg to ensure they were turned 180 degrees 3 times a day (stops the embryo sticking to the shell).