BYC's 2026 Valentine's Day Hatch-Along

[gullinkambe]

It's day 33 for the first 8 duck eggs. 5 has internally pipped and been put in the hatcher.

One died some days ago. One has dipped and will pip later today, I'm guessing. The last one I think I put in a day after the others, it's not dipped yet.

I'm quite rusty with duck hatching, it's been a while since I was good at it, and my last hatch a few years ago didn't go well at all. So I'm approaching this one with apprehension. This year's "duck finale" will be a batch of expensive shipped eggs come springtime. Glad I get a few tries before that, to rediscover the skill.

 

[redinator]

It's day 33 for the first 8 duck eggs. 5 has internally pipped and been put in the hatcher.

One died some days ago. One has dipped and will pip later today, I'm guessing. The last one I think I put in a day after the others, it's not dipped yet.

I'm quite rusty with duck hatching, it's been a while since I was good at it, and my last hatch a few years ago didn't go well at all. So I'm approaching this one with apprehension. This year's "duck finale" will be a batch of expensive shipped eggs come springtime. Glad I get a few tries before that, to rediscover the skill.

So duck math is a thing too?

My son saw me setting aside some of our eggs to put in the incubator . .

He said "I thought the ones you put in last week were the last ones?"

I said, "Those were the last ones I was ordering, not hatching. I have to test hatch a few of ours so I know if I'm ready to start selling hatching eggs or chicks"

I haven't told him about the replacement eggs that I hope to get

 

[Slothinc]

Last night I put my first 11 eggs in lockdown. I was very surprised to already hear peeping from one egg which means it had already pipped internally. I hope they all do okay, especially the one that had internally pipped, because they didn’t have the higher humidity until I put them in lockdown and it looks like they may hatch a day or two early.

 

[Slothinc]

Oh and an egg has just externally pipped!! I am not sure if it is the one that was peeping last night, but hopefully so. So exciting, hopefully I’ll have a few chicks hatching tomorrow!

 

[gullinkambe]

Ok, so two more eggs died, the ones that hadn't internally pipped yet and still sat in the low-humidity incubator. I did an eggtopsy and one was a fully-formed malpositioned. I suspected it, but it's not much I can do to help unless it breaks the shell.

The other had a few more days to go, and it drowned in fluid. I stopped turning the whole batch when I saw movement in a few eggs, and this one was a few days later developed. Still, it's weird that just a few days of not turning has such an effect. It was quite a lot of fluid. Hmm...

I have this theory that for large eggs, air sac size when you put them into the incubator matters (to a degree). Fresh eggs have more fluid that needs to be removed than older ones, where the air sac is already bigger. In chicken eggs and smaller, it doesn't matter much, but for larger eggs with harder, less permeable shells it might. The one that drowned was a "throw-in"-egg, laid hours before incubating. Fresher isn't necessarily better.

Anyway, the five in the hatcher seems to be doing fine, 3 have externally pipped!

 

[Debbie292d]

Last night I put my first 11 eggs in lockdown. I was very surprised to already hear peeping from one egg which means it had already pipped internally. I hope they all do okay, especially the one that had internally pipped, because they didn’t have the higher humidity until I put them in lockdown and it looks like they may hatch a day or two early.

Thus why I do 5-day lockdowns. I once had a silkie pip on Day 18, and ever since then I started doing 5-day lockdowns. Never had one since, but several on Day 19.