Call Ducks

[Lacrystol]

How am I going to know what day to raise the humidity if I don't know what day they are due to hatch??? Right now the humidity is set at 50 - 55 I have to raise it at one point but if I don't know what point that will be.. Before they are due to hatch I have to raise it up to 60 -65 but I don't know what day that would be.???

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

Today is Friday, the early hatchers may start the hatching process today, the
Ate ones as late as Monday/Tuesday. You are in Ohio, raise your humidity to 70% or higher if you can and sit back and wait for them to start pipping and zipping. Please remember that ducks do not just pip, zip hatch like a chicken. They turn and rest, pip, and rest and zip and rest and hatch.

 

[destinduck]

Stick with what you said in post 15 and you will be fine If you hear em peeping you can put in a wet sponge before they pip for higher humidity. Dont sweat it so much. Im sure they will hatch for you. Edited to say Well said also Chickenzoo

 

[Lacrystol]

Today is Friday, the early hatchers may start the hatching process today, the
Ate ones as late as Monday/Tuesday. You are in Ohio, raise your humidity to 70% or higher if you can and sit back and wait for them to start pipping and zipping. Please remember that ducks do not just pip, zip hatch like a chicken. They turn and rest, pip, and rest and zip and rest and hatch.

Isn't that kind of Early? The 28th day is Saturday May 5th, not tomorrow. Tomorrow is only day 21, I doubt it if they hatch on day 21 because that's the time frame for a chicken??

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

Sorry, read it as this was your hatch weekend. You are stressing a week early over what to do and when. You won't do anything until next week. As Destin said if you listen they peep once they internally pip, you can add a sponge ran under hot water to increase humidity quickly as well as a bowl of steamy water. Don't try and second guess yourself. Hatch timelines are averages, so loosely follow them but listen to your eggs for when to raise humidity. Remember not every egg will make it, and there are times there is nothing you can do. Helping an egg, can lead to more problems than good unless well versed in hatching, the breed being hatched, and equipment on hand to properly work with.

Like Destin we auto turn and hand turn both all waterfowl eggs.

 

[Lacrystol]

I can't wait, this is the first time of trying to hatch duck eggs starting with Day 1. Last year when I hatched out eggs I already had a 3 week head start, had no clue when lock down was, the way I did it and perhaps I should use the same procedure. HUMMM didn't think about that but what I did is candled them each night and when I saw the beak pushing up against the membrane, I put them in lockdown and raised that humidity..

 

[duckluck]

Call ducks can vary greatly. I have had a baby come out on its own at day 23, and I have had one that needed to be helped out on day 28. Hatches in the same house, same incubator can vary from hatch to hatch. I don't follow some of the "rules"; rather, I candle often and let the egg tell me what it needs, which also means sometimes I have some eggs from the same hatch getting different treatment than others. Spraying/misting is done to help dry down the eggs, not moisturize them, so one has to know where the air cells stand befoe going crazy with the misting, or risk drying them down too much too fast. You also have to be able to recognize when you put the eggs in how much bloom they have on them...have they been washed at all, unwashed or have they had the bloom washed off? Because if you clean eggs before setting them, or your ducks "help out" by "washing" them for you, some eggs lose their bloom easier than others and you have to be careful.

Right now I am running a dry incubator with misting once a day and the eggs are all looking spot-on for this hatch without "renegades" that need individualized attention, but we'll see if that luck holds out. It might, because these eggs were all fairly clean and only needed to be dipped rather than rinsed.

On that "lockdown", I keep turning until I see the internal pip, *unless* I see the duckling has been pushing for some time (a day or two) and then stops. Then I put them to the hatcher to try and stimulate them with the high humidity. I take each egg acording to what it is doing, so you can see we don't have a real "lockdown" here. Calls often seem to like to quit, and my hatcher cycles the temp up and down within a degree, so this allows the hatching ducklings just a tiny titch of relief on the heat while hatching. All of this is still bearing in mind what the air cells in the eggs are looking like; eggs that start to look like they are drying down too much go to the hatcher where the higher humidity puts that process in check. This is also where having an old redwood hatcher comes in handy, as it is easy to get the humidity back up quickly.

 

[fowllover]

I was reading this thread and was curious.....how did it turn out for you?

 

[Lacrystol]

I was reading this thread and was curious.....how did it turn out for you?

Well I started a new link call help, help I screwed up and it's all the process... But we ended up with 10 babies out of 12.

 

[darren]

no high humitiy is good ive hatched lots of calls may have to help external pip ,if you just a small hole