Dry incubating duck eggs - Final count: three ducklings *PICS*

[Gypsy07]

I ended up dry incubating my duck eggs after day 10 when I realised they weren't losing moisture fast enough. I ignored all the standard stuff about duck eggs needing more humidity than chicken eggs and just went with my trusty set of digital scales, Brinsea's recommendation of a 15% weight loss, and some common sense. Come lockdown I bumped my humidity from 30% to 75-80% and sat back to wait...

The first one pipped yesterday morning, and did nothing more for well over a day. Having read about ducklings on this forum, I knew they normally take much longer than chickens to hatch, so I refused to get concerned. I went off out to work this morning, and came back home this evening to a huge beefy duckling just about filling my little incubator. Wow! I also have one more pipped, and another egg rocking and rolling in there.

Conclusion: If you're not sure what humidity to go with, weigh your eggs and you can get it right first time.

 

[weimarmama]

Congrats!

Glad dry hatching worked for you

 

[Mrs. Fluffy Puffy]

Woohoo!!

But...uh...where is the picture?

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~ Aspen

 

[Gypsy07]

A full day later... the second one just hatched out too!

Here's the photo - right after the second one hatched:

I had no idea baby ducks were so much cuter than baby chickens!

 

[ranchhand]

Adorable, well done! Hope they all keep popping out like that!

 

[Highlander]

Ooooh too cute! What kind are they? You will love ducks, they are so funny.

You and I need to have a chat about all this weighing business! I'm having awful hatching results and I'm sure it's a humidity thing so I need to try something different.

 

[Gypsy07]

Sadly, I think that's probably it. I started off with 18 eggs but my trusty old bator suddenly went wonky and cooked them all to 105F before I noticed what was happening. I'm surprised any of them survived, really. I transferred them all to a homemade still air styro bator that I bought in an extreme hurry, and it turned out to be no better at holding a steady temp. Ten had been cooked to death, but eight continued to develop through huge temp swings and erratic hand turning. I put all eight in lockdown, though I was sure two had already died. Two days ago there was another egg rocking, but it seems to have stopped now. Sad, but I have a fairly strict policy of not intervening unless I am sure they are stuck due to low lockdown humidity, which definitely wasn't the case here. Harsh maybe, but I have no desire to hatch out weak chicks. And after what these two ahve been through, they're probably the strongest ducklings in existence!

I was incubating them for a friend, and I spoke to him today and asked for another 18 eggs. I now have a very posh fancypants Brinsea EX with the automatic humidity pump, so I'm sure I'll be able to do better second time around. I'm just glad I got two out with this hatch and not only one. That would have been awful...

 

[Highlander]

Oh what a shame. Sounds like you did really well to get the two then.

 

[Denninmi]

Congrats on the two, at least.

When I tried duck and goose eggs at a lower humidity during incubation, they came out all sticky with a lot of albumen and membrane stuck to their backs. It did slough off in a couple of days, but I had to help a couple because they were stuck to the shell.

I didn't have that problem at all with quail incubated in the same humidity range, around 40% during incubation and 55 to 60% initial during hatch.

Just wanted to throw that out there.

 

[Mrs. Fluffy Puffy]

Quote:
Oh, such cuteness!

Thanks for sharing!!

Ducklings are pretty stink'in cute!

~Aspen