Duck Eggs, Day 29, Advice??

[ChickenLil123]

WOW, what great information from "iamcuriositycat". I really appreciate your input and yes I did put more humidity in the incubator this time, every day I watered down the inside of the incubator all around. Everything you said makes lots of sense...when I candled the eggs at the last I would have to say that one they were stuck to one side of the egg like I stopped turning them too soon (day 25) and two yes they seemed that there was too much liquid inside, which then provided your information tends to make me believe that not enough natural evaporation took place. Your information is absolutely priceless. Thank you!

 

[FenDruadin]

Aww, glad I could help. Sorry about the babies, though--what a disappointment. It happens to us all at some point, of course--I had it happen once because I had a batch of bad quail eggs in the same incubator and didn't realize that they were filling the bator with humidity (and probably germs) which caused my air cells not to develop and I lost the whole batch of duck eggs. I could have prevented it by checking on the quail eggs for development instead of just leaving them in there for three weeks.

Glad you have a good idea what probably happened, and I hope that translates to better results next time. Definitely keep us posted!

 

[ChickenLil123]

I made my homemade incubator from a styrofoam cooler box. Here is the link

. Search "How to make an Egg Incubator" and it is by epicfantasy or "Stormthecastle.com" He makes a really great homemade incubator. I check the temperature and humidity with an acu-rite thermometer I bought at Walmart. I live in Houston so I have made several holes around the box to cool it because it gets so hot here in Houston. When it is over 100 degrees outside it affects everyliving thing inside! So, that being said we are still pretty warm for winter and I have had to lift the box top with toothpicks just to let out some of the heat. I have had to adjust the temperature alot, again by lifting the top slightly with toothpicks and I added water alot this time to help alleviate some of the heat. When I added water to the sides the temp would go down to 90 and the humidity would go up to 70-80%. I think the previous post is right, I added too much water, too early and probably stopped turning them too soon. I noticed that when I candled them at the last there was alot of water surrounding the distorted masses.

 

[TweetyNPetey]

Yes, if they start to smell, throw them out as soon as you notice. If you leave them, they could explode germ-filled gook all over normally developing eggs, killing the embryos inside. I had the same problem with my mallard eggs, they started to smell, so I threw them out. and I'm glad I did.



P.S. When I incubated my mallard eggs, the eggs were GREEN!!!! I KNOW mallard eggs are supposed to be white!!!!!! LOL