Duck eggs rocking at day 20?!

[finlay990]

Hi everyone,

I have some Khaki Campbell duck eggs in the incubator and today is day 20. Tonight when I got them out for their nightly cooling and misting I noticed they were rocking back and forth!! Its only day 20..?! is this normal? I took the automatic egg turner out and im thinking of going into lockdown but I dont know if its way too early. Will they be ok without turning and misting for the next week if they hatch at 28 days? or should i still be misting, cooling and turning daily until day 25? if they are going to hatch early I dont want to interrupt them. I don't know what to do! No internal pips. Please help!

 

[IvysAnimals]

(Most) Duck eggs start to hatch around day 28. They are nearly fully developed, so they are able to start moving around. They won't start hatching until they know they're fully ready and absorbed all of their yolk. The temperature can play a huge role in early or late hatching. Too high of a temp will cause early hatching and low temps will often result in late hatching. They might start rocking around, but it won't mean they'll start to hatch. Until they internally pip, they'll just be rocking around and bumping into their siblings. You should stop turning them 3 days before day 28, so day 25. If you have them in an egg-turner, take them out on day 25 and keep them on their side with the big end facing up. The humidity should be raised up to 55-60% on lockdown ( day 25 - day 28. ) In that time period which is called lockdown day, you should not touch or open the incubator at all until most have hatched and dried off. You can leave them in the incubator for up to 72 hours, but best it to not have them in for longer than 48 hours. Make sure to only take out fully dried-off chicks/ducklings out of the incubator into a brooder.

 

[BelovedBirds]

Hi everyone,

I have some Khaki Campbell duck eggs in the incubator and today is day 20. Tonight when I got them out for their nightly cooling and misting I noticed they were rocking back and forth!! Its only day 20..?! is this normal? I took the automatic egg turner out and im thinking of going into lockdown but I dont know if its way too early. Will they be ok without turning and misting for the next week if they hatch at 28 days? or should i still be misting, cooling and turning daily until day 25? if they are going to hatch early I dont want to interrupt them. I don't know what to do! No internal pips. Please help!

If the eggs are rocking, you really dont need to turn them anymore. So you can take out the turner now.
If the air cells are starting to draw down, you can lock them down and bump the humidity. If the air cells arent drawing down/the ducklings arent shadowing yet, then you can wait until this begins. You'll likely have to lockdown early.

Is your thermometer calibrated? If the temp is running a little too high, you may have early hatches.