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

[Goin Quackrrs]

3 duckies, 3 pairs of eyeballs. Everyone seems pretty healthy.


Anyone here know anything about Australian Spotted ducks? I was expecting them to all look like the one in the center. Wondering whether these are normal color variations, or if there's perhaps a bit of Swedish in them...
IF they did have a black/blue Swedish dad, would that be likely to provide any sort of sex-linked coloring? And would bantam mom + standard dad = medium sized offspring? Or does one parent's gene's prevail?

Feeling even more bummed about the duckling that died mid-zip if only one of the three I have is the breed I was hoping for. Though, at least now I don't need to worry about telling them apart!

Christy

I've never had Aussie Spotteds, so no advice, but they are darn cute!

Day 26 for me and my 14 welsh harlequins, I noticed 8 external pipps last tonight, nothing since ... yikes!!!
I'll try an be patient....keeping my humidity as high as I can ...

The waiting is the worst. Oh, ducklings, why can't you hatch faster?

Well, I got two healthy runners, one grey and one may be WHITE! I shout because it's parents are Penciled runners, no white ducks at all! I see no evidence of markings and Penciled have their markings at birth. There is a possible faint darkening on one eye , but that could be sticky feather goo. I moved them, because the hatcher is too full and they were pecking on the one who was weak. I finally took out the weak one I helped get out (the hookbill) after his long attempt to hatch and he was sticky and not walking, I immersed him in warm water to get goo off and put him in brooder with other two. He died this morning . I have two that were pipped over 24 hours and not making progress and seemed to be shrinkwrapping so I wrapped them in wet towels and decapped the end, and have set them back down. I have one externally pipped, but think is dead in shell, no sounds or movement this morning... Hatcher is starting to smell, so I candeled and think I have lots of dead in shell. I believe I incubated too low a temp humidity ( I do have some under my mini ducks, like 9 or 10 ,m they seem to do it better. )

I had tried to fill resevoir as Hovabator said and set the incubator full, and it kept a pretty constant 99-100 ,and a 42-46% humidity, until day 24, then upped to 75-80%/.I had one power out, which we got generator running for , and one 'deplug' incident, both dropping temp to 95. No spikes over 100. (which I had last year.)Fertility was probably 80-90% when set. Mostly runners and Hookbills (stored , non turning , in crawlspace for up to a week)..... I have 8 Runner/and Hookbill eggs in the other incubator too (fresh, not stored), and raised temp a bit to 100+ will have to move hygrometer to check humidity after filling main resevoir. I moved them when the others started to hatch as I am afraid they might get contaminated or too high humidity.
I didn't wash or mist this time or cool down as regularly either.....guess I need to put big notes on the door with a checklist!!

Congrats on the two runners!

Sorry the hookbill didn't make it.

If your bator's got a nasty smell, it's probaby time to candle and assess if they are all dead or not. If you've still got live ones, you want to get the icky ones out before they burst.

Good luck with your next hatch!

Day 25 for my Welsh Harlequins & Pekins, and one of each has hatched! So far seem ready, too.
They were supposed to be 5 days behind the bantams and ended up only one day apart. Go figure.
These two were part of a group of 5 eggs that seemed like they were dehydrating much faster than the others, so a couple of days ago when I had to open the hatcher to add extra wicking material to cope with chronically low humidity, I popped them in with the bantams, figuring that by day 22ish turning was probably less essential than not losing much more moisture.

I'm wondering now whether they had bigger air cells because they were somehow "ahead" of the others, or if they were just spurred on by all of the commotion of yesterday's hatch. When I took the hatchlings out last night to move to the brooder, there was at least one egg that sounded seriously freaked out to be left alone!

None of the eggs in the other incubator have even pipped yet, as far as I can tell.

Christy

I'd be so tempted to candle... but you should wait and see what happens. I've had earlies the last two hatches, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are all done.

I'm posting late from Florida.

I have 80 Muscovies ducklings!

My first hatch was a communal nest - 36 survived of 41 (born 15 April). I then had a rescued nest that I had to incubate (stupid raccoon) of which 10 survived (born via emergency E-section because the shell was too hard - I picked them out individually on 19 April).

A third nest hatched on 8 May.

The fourth nest hatched today.

Total is now 79! I'll post pics later.

I have two more nests - one will hatch next week.

I'm not sure what to do with all these ducks. But they're fun right now!

80 Scovies???

I work on a farm and we have two scovy moms with a combined total of 17 babies and a runner mom with 12. That's more than enough babies to make me nervous.

I had two welsh harlequins hatch this evening day 26, other eggs of pips but no further activity.
Hopefully the rest will shortly. Going to get a little crowded in the incubator as more hatch, so I'll probably
remove some empty shells & ducklings tomorrow evening. Will post some pictures shortly.

Congrats on your babies! Give the rest time, they'll come when they're ready.

 

[mominoz]

Well of the 2 babies I decapped, yesterday, (took off top of shell) no blood or anything, membrane pretty tough, one pushed out (Ducth Hookbill), and I didn't let him stay in hatcher long, it does have an odor now, 4 hours maybe, put him with the other two healthy ones in Brooder. They other one died in shell.

It had seemed weaker anyway.I smelled and tried to candle the rest of eggs, they have air spaces, some bigger than others, up to 20-30% of the space. They are very dark and I can't see anything but darkness.No peeping or tapping...Pretty sure I may have lost them all...I think when I set I was looking at the info for bators with a fan. Mine is still air. I am on day 29, so I may wait a couple more days. I do notice the outside of some shells looking like they are wet or greasy , sort of a shading difference going on....I held them each up to smell, but none smell any worse than the incubator as a whole.
I have 3 live babies out of 48 eggs,

One that is all yellow (from the Penciled Runners), one Grey Runner , and one Dutch Hookbill.(They must be pretty strong to make it )hmmmm. I do have 16 in staggered group in the other bator, which I am now running higher temp and humidity and going to cool down daily for sure.We'll see. And I may try and get a more powerful light for candling , I have been using a long range LED flashlight. But eggs are either blue or creme.
I do have some under mini ducks so see if they hatch some around the 3rd.

 

[zekii]

Day 27 for me so far of my 14 welsh harlequin eggs, 7 live duckling, one duckling might be dead in egg, Couple eggs with pips.
Here's a picture I just took after I put them in the brooder.

 

[hfchristy]

They're adorable, zekii.
Can you tell sex at all with them? I've heard sometimes you can with Welsh Harlequins, but I can never remember what is supposed to mean what.

I've got two Welsh Harlequins hatched (along with 2 Pekin and 3 Australian Spotted and/or Australian Spotted/Cayuga cross), one more that seems like it may be too weak to hatch, and 15 mostly Welsh Harlequin eggs in the other incubator, all set at the same time as the first batch, half pipped, half not. And by "half" I literally mean half of the incubator. It's as if a line was drawn down the middle between the two windows. Very strange. All of the eggs were in one incubator until lockdown, and moving around the box whenever I turned them, so I'm not sure what is causing the differences in hatch time.

Christy

 

[hfchristy]

Scratch that... I have THREE Welsh Harlequins. Phew. Didn't think he was going to make it. I'm still not sure he did it on his own. The other duckling in there was really nipping at the shell at the end. No obvious deformities, though. Incubator had gotten pretty warm in the heat today, so maybe he was just too hot to work very hard.
Which reminds me... what do you do when you realize the incubator is too warm but it's in lockdown?? The rest of the month, if I saw it was too hot I just said "gee, must be time to turn the eggs" and that usually cooled it enough.

So glad to be down to just one incubator. I can't wait to clean the one that has been hatching for three days - and that was only 8 ducks. I hate to imagine what things would have looked like if I'd manage to hatch even close to all of the 42 eggs I set!

 

[zekii]

Well supposely the all dark bills indicate a drake, I so far am seeing only one of
my 7 with a completely dark bill, the rest have yellow with a dark line down the center.
So I guess we'll see what I end with in a few months.

Last update for me...another welsh harlequin duckling hatched tonight, so looks like number 8. I am happy so far since these were my very first shipped eggs, which I have been leary about, but then I've recently read some horror stories with shipped chicks!

They're adorable, zekii.
Can you tell sex at all with them? I've heard sometimes you can with Welsh Harlequins, but I can never remember what is supposed to mean what.

I've got two Welsh Harlequins hatched (along with 2 Pekin and 3 Australian Spotted and/or Australian Spotted/Cayuga cross), one more that seems like it may be too weak to hatch, and 15 mostly Welsh Harlequin eggs in the other incubator, all set at the same time as the first batch, half pipped, half not. And by "half" I literally mean half of the incubator. It's as if a line was drawn down the middle between the two windows. Very strange. All of the eggs were in one incubator until lockdown, and moving around the box whenever I turned them, so I'm not sure what is causing the differences in hatch time.

Christy

 

[hfchristy]

On to incubator #2!
One very determined WH hatched late last night, and by morning there were 5 more. Such a stark contrast to the way things went in the other group where we had several hours between each of the eggs. This bator is all WH except, I think, one Pekin who didn't pip, and they are so cute together. I swear, they've been brooding the remaining eggs. The one they were all huddled around this morning hatched after breakfast, bringing the total to 7 hatched of the 8 that pipped. The guys in the other incubator clambered all over the other eggs and shells, rolling them this way and that as they stumbled around. These ones have neatly rolled everything out of their way and are calmly milling about in the space they've emptied.

After #7 hatched, they rolled #8 over to the side with the unpipped eggs and I couldn't find it anymore, but figured maybe they were trying to tell me something. So... I opened the bator. Sure enough, first one I candled looked pretty lifeless. But the next one had an active little someone inside it. Oops! Closed thing up, but not before grabbing the egg that had pipped with the others. Surely that one was dead since it pipped night before last and hadn't done a darned thing since... Wrapped it in a warm rag and talked to it and the teeniest little piece of shell flipped up at me. Okay - not dead yet! It seemed pretty weak, though. Hoping for the best, whatever that may mean.

The incubator is on a table tucked into the corner of a room in such a way that one half gets a lot more light than the other. Maybe more of the heat of the room, too. Would that cause a difference in development rates?

 

[zekii]

Well add to the 8 welsh harlequin ducklings, two more hatched out quickly early
on Day 28, and now late Day 28 one more is pushing out of the egg, so right now
I have 11 duckling, only 2 more eggs in the incubator. Can't complain about these
shipped eggs, amazing considering these were my 1st shipped eggs.

Will post more pictures shortly....

 

[mominoz]

Well guys ,I finish my April hatch along with my other thread "Late Incubator deaths" is you all want to learn by my mistakes and bad luck. Had 3 power outages...and my temp and humidity too low...I got 2 runners and a hookbill out of 48 ....

 

[Cr8z4ducks]

Congrats to all the new babies! I wanted to give an update on my brood...

Candled tonite and I've got 10 Pekins still going strong out of 28. My hatch day is next Saturday, June 2nd. Keeping my fingers crossed, while sitting on my hands trying not to candle everyday out of curiosity. I sure hope I have better luck with these! My temp has been staying between 99 and 100 with humidity between 45 and 50%.