Egg incubation report

nao57

Crowing
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Well this is my first time trying to incubate eggs.

They are all duck eggs from two batches bought from others. They are also supposed to be all runners. (I like how they look and the standing up right.)

I put them in on the 23rd of March, which means they should be getting close. Well that was the first batch. The second batch didn't arrive until a week later. And I put them in around the 29th I think or 30th.

But there were a lot of dead eggs from the first batch. Some of them never even started and might have been infertile. :S I think only 2 are still alive from the first batch. But one looks weak and way behind the others. The other eggs didn't even start veining but stayed as yolks the entire time.

The second batch many are still alive, probably 9 or 10, out of 16. Some of these may have been fertile and some just didn't work out, probably from the day I found the incubator unplugged.

I'd started with more eggs than necessary accounting for expecting losses since I'm a newbie. But wow, its a bit frustrating that the entire first batch is almost a fail. But its good that I had expectations of some failures and compensated accordingly. It sucks to have it not work the way I'd hoped however, despite trying to be careful.

After this I think I might stick to just ordering live ducklings if I have to get ducklings again. I didn't realize you could do that until after I'd already started the incubator project. I wish I'd have known that. (But maybe there's a death rate from shipping live ducklings through the mail also? What do you think of this?)

Everyone here has given me so many nice comments and advise already! Thanks!
 
It may not necessarily been anything you've done - it could possibly be the quality and fertility of the eggs you bought. That does seem an unusually large amount that didn't start to develop. Were they shipped to you or did you buy them locally?

If your one/two from your first batch do make it they may speed up the others. I found a very interesting article about how and why chicks communicate with each other prior to hatch and posted it here:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/really-interesting-article.1358854/

Another member had an amazing story where it played out for real.

I don't know anything about shipping poultry - it doesn't happen in my country, but hopefully another member can advise you there. From what I've read on BYC it can be very hard on the babies.

I've got my fingers crossed you'll get some little cuties soon. :fl
 

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