Duck eggs in the mail

[BackyardTeepee]

So I ordered 10 Cayuga eggs from Metzer farms. I have never mail ordered eggs before, and in fact have only incubated eggs once before.

They were quail eggs that I collected myself. I got 28 chicks from 36 eggs. I monitored the temp and humidity obsessively. However, I did do a dry hatch. There wasn't really much to tamper with until lockdown.
So any advice, will be greatly appreciated.

So, the mail ordered eggs... Is there anything special that I need to do before putting them in the incubator? I read somewhere about a detached air bubble I should be on the lookout for. I have never candled before. I just want to make sure I do the best I can, because it is a little nerve wracking to only be getting 10 eggs that I paid for vs a million eggs I collected from the backyard.

I am on the fence about the cooling and misting technique. I am also using an automatic egg turner. I hear a lot of back and forth about everything by the book, but I usually don't function that way. (Hence the dry hatch) I am looking to keep the humidity probably around 50-60. I've also heard of people just hatching them the same way they do chickens, which I am guessing is similar to quail.

Thank you for any advice!

 

[JaeG]

Weighing duck eggs takes the anxiety out of humidity and is a lot more reliable than looking at the air cells (which can be messed up anyway if the eggs are shipped).

Weigh all of the eggs together with a gram scale and work out the average (just divide the total by however many eggs you have). Make a simple line graph with weight (in the range you need) up the side and days from 0-25 (lockdown day for ducks) along the bottom. On day 0 mark the average start egg weight.

Work out what 14% weight loss will be from your average start weight (there are online calculators that do this for you if you aren't mathematically minded). Mark that weight on day 25. Draw a straight line between the point on day 0 and the point on day 25. Then on any day you can re-weigh your eggs and see if they are losing too little/too much/just enough weight. In this way you can monitor if you have the humidity in the right range or if you need to adjust it.

Even if infertile or dead eggs need to be removed it won't affect the results because you are taking the average weight.

Good luck with your eggs. Ducklings are gorgeous things.

 

[BackyardTeepee]

Weighing duck eggs takes the anxiety out of humidity and is a lot more reliable than looking at the air cells (which can be messed up anyway if the eggs are shipped).

Weigh all of the eggs together with a gram scale and work out the average (just divide the total by however many eggs you have). Make a simple line graph with weight (in the range you need) up the side and days from 0-25 (lockdown day for ducks) along the bottom. On day 0 mark the average start egg weight.

Work out what 14% weight loss will be from your average start weight (there are online calculators that do this for you if you aren't mathematically minded). Mark that weight on day 25. Draw a straight line between the point on day 0 and the point on day 25. Then on any day you can re-weigh your eggs and see if they are losing too little/too much/just enough weight. In this way you can monitor if you have the humidity in the right range or if you need to adjust it.

Even if infertile or dead eggs need to be removed it won't affect the results because you are taking the average weight.

Good luck with your eggs. Ducklings are gorgeous things.

Oh wow! Ok, that seems pretty straight forward. Thank you for your detailed response!