A_Beautiful_Mess
In the Brooder
- Mar 14, 2024
- 2
- 28
- 14
Hello folks!! 
I raised chickens and (LOTS of) ducks growing up, and totally fell in love with keeping ducks. I had my own mini flock of khaki campbells about 10 years ago, but have had to step away from it since. I finally live somewhere where I can have backyard poultry again, and I'm SO excited to be planning to hatch out a flock of ducks this spring!!
I purchased a used Little Giant forced-air incubator with an egg turner, and I know there's a steep learning curve before I'd be able to successfully hatch duck eggs. Does anyone have suggestions for where to start? I am reading 'hatching and brooding your own chicks' (the book) and just got 'storey's guide to raising ducks'. I feel pretty confident about being able to set up a brooder and a coop / run. The biggest things I still need to learn are: humidity control (how to do this with the incubator I have, and what humidity to shoot for at each stage -- can I use the humidity recommendations I'm reading about for chicken eggs, or are these very different for ducks? Is it really a good idea to spray-cool duck eggs daily?), temperature timeline, and best practices during hatching.
If it's relevant, the breeds I'm most strongly considering right now are silver appleyards, welsh harlequins, and cayugas; but I've toyed around with the idea of having some pekins or muscovies too -- I'll probably select at least 2 breeds and have a mixed flock. I anticipate that if I want to end up with at least ~5-10 laying ducks, I should probably start with like ~30+ shipped eggs (~80% successful fertility / survive shipping, ~80% hatch rate if I'm lucky, ~50% female, some wiggle room for other issues).
Looking forward to being a part of this community!!
I raised chickens and (LOTS of) ducks growing up, and totally fell in love with keeping ducks. I had my own mini flock of khaki campbells about 10 years ago, but have had to step away from it since. I finally live somewhere where I can have backyard poultry again, and I'm SO excited to be planning to hatch out a flock of ducks this spring!! I purchased a used Little Giant forced-air incubator with an egg turner, and I know there's a steep learning curve before I'd be able to successfully hatch duck eggs. Does anyone have suggestions for where to start?
I am reading 'hatching and brooding your own chicks' (the book) and just got 'storey's guide to raising ducks'. I feel pretty confident about being able to set up a brooder and a coop / run. The biggest things I still need to learn are: humidity control (how to do this with the incubator I have, and what humidity to shoot for at each stage -- can I use the humidity recommendations I'm reading about for chicken eggs, or are these very different for ducks? Is it really a good idea to spray-cool duck eggs daily?), temperature timeline, and best practices during hatching. If it's relevant, the breeds I'm most strongly considering right now are silver appleyards, welsh harlequins, and cayugas; but I've toyed around with the idea of having some pekins or muscovies too -- I'll probably select at least 2 breeds and have a mixed flock. I anticipate that if I want to end up with at least ~5-10 laying ducks, I should probably start with like ~30+ shipped eggs (~80% successful fertility / survive shipping, ~80% hatch rate if I'm lucky, ~50% female, some wiggle room for other issues).
Looking forward to being a part of this community!!
