New here, hello! First time incubating, duck eggs in a Little Giant -- tips (humidity, temp?) :)

[LTAY1946]

Hello and welcome to BYC

 

[pennyJo1960]

Welcome to BYC. This is a great place to explore and hang out.

 

[Burnt Brass Homestead]

Hi @A_Beautiful_Mess

Welcome!

 

[TwoCrows]

Hello and welcome to BYC!

Best wishes with all your Duck hatches!

 

[DobieLover]

Hello and welcome to BYC! Glad you joined.

 

[Kiki]

View attachment 3810607Here's my incubator, for reference!

Welcome, first take those red plugs out and throw them away.

 

[Kiki]

Seondly, buy one or 3 of these and trust them...and NOT the readings on the incubator itself.
https://www.googleadservices.com/pa...K_H_duFAxXLEkQIHfOfC1MQ9aACKAB6BAgBED0&adurl=

 

[Kiki]

Buy the Govees and run the bator for a week so you can learn how it works.
Add a little water and watch what happens.

 

[triciayoung]

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!!

Welcome. You will get help here, there are many duck owners. However, that is not me. 1. I only have chickens and 2. I only hatch with broodies. Sorry.

 

[Debbie292d]

Hiya, and welcome to BYC!