April Hatch-Along!!!!!!! Whos with me????? - Page 10

what a handsome duckling!

Well, my final tally is 4 babies. 2 died in shell one after internal pip and one before internal pip. Babies are in the brooder doing well. All 4 are cayuga/pekin

Congrats on the new babies! Looking forward to seeing photos!

 

I'm still waiting on my cayugas to hatch. And waiting. And waiting.

Thought I'd give you all an update...my poor little fellow didn't make it through the night. . I did set 28 more eggs this morning, picked up a digital thermonitor with humidity reading and a egg turner last night. Hopefully I will have better luck this go round. I just dread having to wait another month.

Congrats to all of you with your new babies!

I'm sorry to hear that.  Does that mean that your other eggs didn't hatch?  I knew you had one that was struggling, but didn't realize he was the only one.  That really stinks.

 

Good luck with this next round.  Do you think you know what went wrong this time?

 

Christy

What I think happened to the last batch were that they were my females first eggs. I tried to wait when she first started laying to see if she would go broody and after the 18th egg or so, and no signs of her going broody, I decided to bring them in and incubate. She laid those eggs all over the pen and even though I would pick them up and put in her nest they still were dirty with mud and poo. I didn't wash them, fearing the bacteria would enter the egg. After they went in the bator, I turned them and didn't watch my humidity levels, but i did keep water in my rings. I did candle and only had to throw a few of them out, but slowly i think they would develop then die. During the last week I know I had at least 6 embryos moving and one had already pipped who was my little guy that hatched. I think the reason why I didn't have more to develop we're a combination of things, maybe?

This go round, my Daisy has laid all her eggs in her nest and they are much, much cleaner. Ive picked them up every day and put them in a cool spot inside and made sure they stayed turned. I invested in a egg turner and a digital thermonitor/humidity and will pay close attention to my humidity. She's been laying now for a couple of months so maybe these will be more fertile. All this has been really fun and disheartening at the same time. You read all these articles, magazines, and books and every one of them will tell you something different. So I'm just going to try process of elimination and make notes on each batch until I find what works. After seeing my little guy hatch Thursday, I'm pretty much hooked now. . So how about we turn this thread into May Hatch Along too? Lol

another wad of quail hatched today more chickens tomorrow  and then turkey madness starts tues

Day 15, candled my 16 welsh harlequin eggs, 14 have good veins, and lots of movement, the 2 eggs that looked funky on day 8 were removed, and broken open. One was clear, one was early dead.

So I have 14 live embryos and lockdown will start on May 14th

What are you all using to bring your humidity levels up?  I have a Little Giant incubator and I've added water to the moisture rings, and put two small diapers soaked with water in the bottom too.  I can't get past 45% humidity. I don't know what I'm going to do when I go on lock down and have to get to 80%!  I just started incubating yesterday, so maybe I should wait and see if it will rise?  Also do any of you mist your duck eggs daily? My temp is set at 99.5 too.  Thanks all!