April Hatch Thread--Come Join Us!

[Wax Myrtle]

Eggs are can be fertile for around three weeks after there is no male.  Depending on the females age, which has an effect on her ability to "hold sperm" 
Good luck.  I love KC Ducks! Be sure and share pictures.

I knew chickens could store sperm, but I had no idea if or how long ducks could. Then, I didn't know you could incubate duck eggs at the same time as chicken eggs, so they all went in the fridge. I've since learned differently, so again, Why not? My duck is very young - somewhere close to 24 weeks. She was bought with the drake as ducklings at the fair in October by the teenage daughter of a friend of my DH. She thought ducks would make good city limits housepets. :rofl Her father disagreed, and we ended up with the pair. Poor duck, all alone now. If I fail at hatching her eggs, I have lined up some proper hatching eggs. She needs company other than the chickens.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Definitely not setting till at least tomorrow. We hit 10 inches of wet heavy snow at 5 o'clock and we seem to be right in the middle of the storm.
I have eggs of the same breed as mine coming in the mail by Thursday. I was hoping to get mine in earlier so I could stagger the hatch. My last attempt to imprison the chicks from specific pairings in mesh bags and quart fruit baskets didn't go well. The little escapees were much too robust to be confined.

 

[Mtn Margie]

Definitely not setting till at least tomorrow. We hit 10 inches of wet heavy snow at 5 o'clock and we seem to be right in the middle of the storm.
I have eggs of the same breed as mine coming in the mail by Thursday. I was hoping to get mine in earlier so I could stagger the hatch. My last attempt to imprison the chicks from specific pairings in mesh bags and quart fruit baskets didn't go well. The little escapees were much too robust to be confined.

I had to read this twice to figure out what you were saying! LOL The image in my brain was not adding up. Still LOL. Maybe those very small colored zip ties would work better, around their leg, not on the mesh bags......

 

[hokankai]

I'm going to separate mine that are hatching (for different people) using dividers made of craft mesh. Should be interesting!

 

[aprilschicks]

just set some americuanas and cochin eggs today

 

[Partyfowl]

I'm in!! I set 16 yesterday 3/23.

Black copper marans
Araucanas. Brown leghorns. Golden lakenvelder. Polish.
The are all shipped. 3 had detached air cells that I know of, i got discouraged and gave up candling after 8 eggs, 2 were cracked. The shipping box was trashed! I have kinda lost hope on this batch and may fire up my second incubators and get start some local eggs.

 

[jphendrix]

I just just candled a few of my eggs. I candled the lighter color ones being it is only day 3. Most of them i could see something going on! I so hope this hatch does as good as my first!

 

[Wax Myrtle]

Just set three KC duck eggs. Hoping for the best!

 

[annabell254]

ok... this will be my first hatch along!!!! I set 13 BLR wyandotte & lavender orpington eggs (not marked) 8 silkie eggs, and 3 mix breed eggs on March 16 in my brinsea 20 advanced... hatch date April 6th... then I got a mistake order of 8 goose eggs a few days later and we had to borrowed a horible, horrible half broken still air incubator to put them in ( all I could get on short notice) set date march 24th... hatch date april 18-20th... I HATE THE STILL AIR INCUBATOR!!! temp flux 94-109!!!! AUGGG! I have to check it every hour and adjust for change!!!

we do not have central heat and air so this is difficult...

. so I candeled the eggs in my brinsea today (day 9) and threw out 4 that were still clear and set 5 good ones under a broody silkie and placed the only 4 goose eggs that looked to be devoloping in the brinsea with the chicken eggs!!!! I really hope this works!!!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I had to read this twice to figure out what you were saying! LOL The image in my brain was not adding up. Still LOL. Maybe those very small colored zip ties would work better, around their leg, not on the mesh bags......

I put colored zip ties on them when they come out of the hatcher but they're all black and that batch were from 4 different roosters so I needed to separate them into at least 4 groups and some other subsets.
Some were in mesh onion/shrimp bags. Somehow they untied the bags.
Some were in upturned quart fruit baskets. No matter what I put on top of them, they threw them off. I was able to zip tie a few for identification. So much for lockdown. I had the hatcher open about a third of the time trying to salvage some of my work.