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So far so good...24 eggs on the bottom shelf, 21 eggs on the middle shelf of the GQF and the bottom is due to start pipping this weekend...at this time, all 45 embryos are viable, though there are a few that are seeming a bit sluggish on the bottom under the candler and I anticipate a few may quit on me before hatching time. So we'll see. The ones I set several days ago in the Humidaire downstairs, some 32 of them, are too early to candle just yet. And I should have 10+ for the next setting...not sure what's going on with my ducks, they seem a bit off since I separated them out into their individual groups. I suspect my whites are considering molting with the warm weather we have had here, in the 70s. Most eggs I've had in a day since then is 4 out of the 8 hens.
Where did yours originate from? Any particular line?
Molting? This time of year? Thats strange?
My white line is mostly Hodum, though I do have a pair from Foley's with Lundgren lines. My grays are LaGesse and two pair from Foley's, one duck of which is Mays' line. Self-blacks are from Foley's and Gregory's line. I also just got a trio of butterscotch that are out of Fuller's, Phelps' and McCallister's lines.
The molt kind of does not surprise me, especially for the whites...someone told me I could expect that since they have been laying intermittently since November and went nuts with laying in early February. They have also just been separated out by color a couple of weeks ago, and they're not real happy about it. The butters that arrived today may or may not continue to lay because of the change, they might decide to molt. But I've got one egg...it arrived with them, unbroken in the shipping box with the hens if you can believe that! I called the PO and gave them kudos on that one!
Butters got here in less than 24 hours from West Virginia!