Eggs Candling..

[thenewducklady]

I have 2 drake buff/pekin 1 female cayuga and 1 female pekin. My pekin just laid her first eggs today and I caught myself crying like a proud mama

Anyway my question is about the eggs. Is there a certain time limit before you should try to cook them? I'm obviously new to the egg candling and I can't tell if they are fertile or not. Should I get an incubator ready just in case??

 

[Orca5094]

Do you want ducklings? If so, an incubator is a good way to go if you have young/inexperienced females that might not go broody for you. If you just want them to eat (or don't want ducklings), just collect the eggs every morning and there will be no chance of them developing into ducklings. They have to be incubated properly for several days before they will start to develop.

Duck eggs are good to eat up to about 3 weeks after they have been laid.

If you want to incubate and hatch out ducklings, you will want to use eggs that are, at most, 10 days old for the best hatch rate.