Advice on removing turning tray early and lockdown early?

[indianaducks]

I have 2 duck eggs and 11 chicken eggs in a NR 360 incubator. I set the duck eggs a week before the chicken eggs so the duck eggs would have 28 days and the chicken eggs would have 21 days. (Technically 6.5 days before, as the last time I incubated duck eggs they started hatching 12 - 24 hours early.)

Anyway, there's 5.5 days left in incubation - my duck eggs are wiggling quite a bit, the air sac has grown significantly just overnight, and I'm wondering if one is thinking about an internal pip soon.

The chicken eggs seem to be fine but no wiggling or anything yet. (I've never incubated chicken eggs before, is this normal?)

I had planned to wait another 2 - 2.5 days to remove the turning tray and put the incubator on lockdown, but based on the duck eggs, I'm wondering if I should do that sooner to insure the tray gets removed before anyone pips? Thoughts?

 

[indianaducks]

Photo of duck egg

 

[hysop]

If it were me I would put it on lockdown now. For chickens lockdown is on day 18. You don’t want your ducks to be shrink wrapped. I’ve never incubated duck eggs however.

 

[indianaducks]

I took the tray out and put it on lockdown. One of the duck eggs appears to be shadowing and getting ready to internally pip. Better safe than sorry. Hopefully the rest of the eggs will be okay as well.

 

[NatJ]

I had planned to wait another 2 - 2.5 days to remove the turning tray and put the incubator on lockdown, but based on the duck eggs, I'm wondering if I should do that sooner to insure the tray gets removed before anyone pips?

For chicken eggs, it is safe to stop turning about a week before hatch. So locking them down early should be fine.

I do not know for sure about duck eggs, but I'm guessing they would also be fine if you stop turning a few days earlier than originally planned (especially since they are the ones you're most concerned about.)

(There are studies showing that turning is most important for chicken eggs within about the first 3 days, somewhat important for the next week and a half, and turning past 14 days does not improve hatch rates. So that means that turning for 2/3 of incubation is enough for chicken eggs, and I notice that your duck eggs have already been turned for more than 3/4 of their incubation period.)

 

[indianaducks]

For chicken eggs, it is safe to stop turning about a week before hatch. So locking them down early should be fine.

I do not know for sure about duck eggs, but I'm guessing they would also be fine if you stop turning a few days earlier than originally planned (especially since they are the ones you're most concerned about.)

(There are studies showing that turning is most important for chicken eggs within about the first 3 days, somewhat important for the next week and a half, and turning past 14 days does not improve hatch rates. So that means that turning for 2/3 of incubation is enough for chicken eggs, and I notice that your duck eggs have already been turned for more than 3/4 of their incubation period.)

Thanks, everyone has been turned with the auto turning tray since I set them. So that's definitely not a concern anymore Just didn't want to up the humidity too soon for the other eggs... but also don't want an issue with the duck egg that's an overachiever and ahead of schedule!

I set 8 duck eggs to begin with and only 2 left (I think I just collected probably about a week too early for good fertile eggs with winter and all that. Lesson learned). Last time I hatched 6/10 duck eggs.

 

[NatJ]

Thanks, everyone has been turned with the auto turning tray since I set them. So that's definitely not a concern anymore

I didn't think you stopped too early, just wanted to reassure you that they already did get turned for the most important part of incubation

Just didn't want to up the humidity too soon for the other eggs... but also don't want an issue with the duck egg that's an overachiever and ahead of schedule!

You could leave the humidity at normal levels for a few more days, unless you see a pip. If you do see a pip on that overachiever, then of course you'd raise the humidity right away! But having high humidity for a few extra days should not be a big problem, if it was at the correct level through the earlier parts of incubation.

 

[indianaducks]

I didn't think you stopped too early, just wanted to reassure you that they already did get turned for the most important part of incubation


You could leave the humidity at normal levels for a few more days, unless you see a pip. If you do see a pip on that overachiever, then of course you'd raise the humidity right away! But having high humidity for a few extra days should not be a big problem, if it was at the correct level through the earlier parts of incubation.

Perfect thank you. I did start raising the humidity for my overachiever. Everyone else seems to be fine and I don't want to lose these guys. I don't think there's an internal pip yet, but its getting close.

 

[indianaducks]

All same egg slightly different angles and times this afternoon. Start of internal pip right?