6 Miniature Appleyard eggs - advice welcome

[Holonomic]

Hi all,

We have been wanting to welcome some ducks into our family for quite a while now, but last week we took the plunge and managed to find some miniature apple yard hatching eggs. Which is the breed I decided we would get a few years back, the plan was to get them last year but due to us getting ready to welcome our daughter into the world we thought it would be best to wait
Although she is still too young to help clean the duck house we hope she will enjoy growing up with them in the garden

The 6 eggs were placed in the incubator last Friday, 6 days ago. We candled them for the first time this evening and unfortunately it looks like 2 are not viable - I have attached a picture of one of the two below and would appreciate confirmation. (also added a fertile egg as an example)

not fertile? ​	Fertile

Our plan was to have a small flock, we have the room for a larger flock but I don't think we would want more than 8-9 preferably with only the one drake, obviously we can not control what we have sex wise but from the 4 (potentially) viable eggs we are now looking at 2/2 unless we are lucky and get 3 females and 1 male... or unlucky and get more drake
I had planned on either selling or giving the drakes away to help control the flock size/excess drakes. I would have been OK with the idea of keeping them as table birds but my partner is not.


Although I have many questions which I am sure I will bother you guys with soon enough, for now I would like to ask how we should proceed.

• Could you confirm that the above egg (on the left) is 100% not fertile or should we wait longer?
• If it is not fertile I assume we should remove it from the incubator and pop them both in the bin?
• If we get 2 hens and 2 drakes, I assume we should still remove one of the drakes?
• How would you suggest building the flock up from (hypothetically) 2 hens and 1 drake? should we wait a year and line breed them and try again next year or should we get more hatching eggs this year? Are there any downsides of getting them this year vs waiting and breeding our own?
• If we did get more hatching eggs for this season/year, should we wait until these 4 hatch before incubating the next 6 eggs or could we add another 6 to the 4 now? Again and advantages/disadvantages of either option?

I believe that is all for now, I hope you are all well and have a good weekend.

//Quack

 

[Holonomic]

Morning,

So I do beleive the second egg is sadly given up on us, still no signs of movement.

However the first egg which I put the safety hole is has hatched!
When I went to bed last night there was still no external pip, so I was very shocked when I woke up this morning to find a little duckling happily chilling in the incubator.

S/he seems very happy to be out, quite lively and walking already! I showed it the food and water and popped the little guy into the brooder but sadly couldnt spend too much time with him as I had to rush off to work.

He was clear from the egg when we found him this morning, I was expecting a much longer process than this! So a little shocked )

 

[Holonomic]

 

[Holonomic]

How many gallons of sweat did you produce when you were drilling the hole?

haha, it was quite scary - Not so much sweaty but I think I checked the location of the chick 8 times before making the hole!

I ended up using some sharp tweezers (the ones which curve around at the top) instead of the screw as the one I had wasn't quite right it felt like I was putting too much pressure onto the egg - the tweezers went through very easily and then I used the screw just to widen it ever so slightly!

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

It looks perfect!

 

[Holonomic]

Oh also, the other one - I assume I should wait until that has internally piped and do the same thing or is it better to wait until 24 hours after the internal pip to put the safety hole in?

I shall check it again in the morning and as soon as I get home.

Thank you again for the help

 

[Miss Lydia]

You can also buy sexed from a hatchery too. Which helps if wanting to only add females to an already existing flock with a drake.

 

[Knighstar679]

Hi guys, just a quick update.

Unfortunately it turned out that only 3 of the eggs were fertile/viable - the person I got them off however sent us some more (half cost) which are now in a new incubator - a Brinsea mini II ex, which seems to be much better... truly is amazing quality. It has full control of the humidity and you can adjust the frequency of the turn and adjust the turn depending on the size of the eggs.
The new batch of 6 have been in there for 4 days now and all 6 show clear signs of life.

Going back to the first batch, as I said only 3 were fertile it seems however I am unsure on how well they are actually doing.
I am 99% certain one of the three eggs has died (is that the correct word to use? it makes me feel guilty!) - the other two I am not sure about.
A few days ago I noticed the auto turner on the incubator was not working and the temperature was fluctuating, not by much maybe .3 of a degree Celsius.
We have since started turning the eggs manually and moved the incubator to a more temperature neutral area in the house.

I noticed the growth of the veins started to slow down and I was seeing less movement in the veins which were already formed today there seems to be something which could be the bird forming however no movement under a light and there is a clear 'cavity' in the egg... but I really do not know!
I would really appreciate some input on how these look, the first picture is of the one which I believe is 'dead' the others are of the 2 which I am unsure on.

Note: these are on day 19 of incubation

View attachment 2102738View attachment 2102739View attachment 2102740View attachment 2102741

As a bonus question: with the new eggs how frequently should I be turning the eggs? With the new incubator I can set it to do a half turn every 10min - 12 hours... can you turn the eggs too often? I currently have it set for every 2 hours at a 50% turn.

Many thanks all <3

I can see veins in your darker eggs so I think they are still ok. Unless there is one smelling bad.

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

I would do it before bed as I wouldn't be able to sleep. But that's a personal.preference not necessarily correct. I am probably in over my head here. @WVduckchick I don't know much about mini appleyards hatching. I was assuming they might have hatching problems like calls. The key piece of information we don't know is now long it's been internally pipped.

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

You could go ahead and put a small safety hole tonight, It won't hurt anything if done correctly, It just ensures they don't run out of air and suffocate. Get a small sharp screw or a brad point drill bit, position the screw directly above the air cell, and slowly start twisting back and forth until the tip enters the egg, do not widen the hole any further just the tip should go in.

Thanks Issac. I should have thought to shout out to you.