are they developing correctly?

[secretquail]

This is my 1st time incubating duck eggs, and I'm not sure about their progress. It is day 17, and out of 18 eggs 13 have the nice dark center. The others were quiters, and I got rid of them. My question relates to candling. I can see the air pocket on the top. The center is a big dark blob with veins running around the edges. The bottom, er, top, er, the other end...is cloudy. Is this the yolk? I expected the dark to take up the entire egg sans the air sack. All of them are like this. Is this normal? I'll try to get pics up soon.

I'm just not used to being able to candle the eggs...quail eggs are impossible to see through! It is fun to be able to watch them change.

 

[FenDruadin]

Sounds normal to me. They won't fill up the entire egg until Day 22-25ish.

 

[secretquail]

oh, that's a relief! I was thinking all kinds of things were wrong...did I put them in up side down, am I going to get little mutants...

Thanks Curiositycat

 

[Denninmi]

Sounds perfectly normal to me as well. When I did my Rouen eggs this spring, I found that they really didn't fill the entire egg up until around day 25.

 

[FenDruadin]

No problem! I know what you mean about quail eggs--they drive me crazy. I can't even tell if they're fertile, let alone see anything significant about their development. But your duck eggs, including the cloudiness at the end, sound exactly right. Good luck with them! One thing to know, if you're used to quail, is that the actual hatch will take for freakin ever. It's usually about 48 hours from pip to zip for my ducks, versus 12 hours for quail. Drives me crazy! lol

Good luck!