agribs87
Hatching
- Oct 16, 2016
- 1
- 0
- 7
We have 6 females and 1 male duck. We had no intentions to breed our ducks or hatch eggs, but the ducks had other plans and began hiding eggs in a nest in the yard (they have free roam of the yard). When we finally found their nest, there were over 17 eggs in it, from at least 3 different ducks. A few days later it was down to just 5, and there was a broken egg about 20 feet away so we are assuming an animal was getting them. At this point someone at my moms work told her it was easy to incubate and hatch the eggs, to just get an incubator with an automatic turner and it would be smooth sailing. So in an effort to save the eggs/ducklings because it was save them or let an animal get them, we decided to go for it. With outside guidance (which I don't fully trust now) we set the incubator to 101*F candled the eggs, put in the two fertile ones, and waited. We were having some small humidity issues, but managed to keep it at about 55% for the majority of the time. Thursday evening one egg, Freddy, pipped at what we can only guesstimate to be about day 27, Friday night we had a baby duckling. The second egg showed no signs of movement, and a viability test confirmed the egg would probably not hatch. About 18 hours after birth, we relocated Freddy to a small plastic shoebox with a heat lamp, she was flopping around and chirping trying to climb everything and drinking water (small dish, less than a quarter inch of water). An hour later she was gone. I have been running my fingers ragged all night trying to figure out what went wrong, and now I have no idea how Freddy even lasted that long with everything we messed up. Is there a foolproof way to prevent this from happening again (especially since there is already another 16 eggs the yard ladies have been hiding from us). Any ideas on what might have been the actual cause, or did we just totally screw up everything for the poor duckling? I'll post my ideas below.
1) I am wondering if we had the humidity too high, between 55% and 65% during incubation but especially after the hatching when it spiked to almost 80% for an amount of time less than 2 hours before I caught it.
2) we had no idea that eggs were susceptible to germs transmitted from hands. In our minds, our hands couldn't be worse than being outside, but I'm wondering if this could have caused death in the unhatched egg, and the new duckling?
3) we were told to leave the eggs in the turners, then remove the turner once the eggs hatch. It was only mid hatch (after unzipping) that we realized the duck would not be able to hatch straight up. So we removed the turner and placed the egg on a moist paper towel (a tip from an assisted hatch website that said opening the incubator could dry out the egg so it would need the extra moisture).
4) at 18 hours we moved the duckling to a plastic shoe box lined with pine bedding. We placed a small flat dish of water, and a few small pieces of food. The heat lamp was placed and the temperature was 95*. Wondering if we removed her from the incubator too soon? Was it too hot? The incubator was 101* so logically speaking how would 6 degrees cooler be too hot?
Sorry for all the details. I would just really appreciate input. I know inexperience really came into play, and I regret wholeheartedly attempting such a task that ended up losing the poor duckling so early. Hoping to avoid such a loss next time. And hopefully this next round of eggs will go better and be the last one. Which is my next question, is it possible to deter ducks from wanting to nest? We get rid of one and they just build another the next day.
TIA
1) I am wondering if we had the humidity too high, between 55% and 65% during incubation but especially after the hatching when it spiked to almost 80% for an amount of time less than 2 hours before I caught it.
2) we had no idea that eggs were susceptible to germs transmitted from hands. In our minds, our hands couldn't be worse than being outside, but I'm wondering if this could have caused death in the unhatched egg, and the new duckling?
3) we were told to leave the eggs in the turners, then remove the turner once the eggs hatch. It was only mid hatch (after unzipping) that we realized the duck would not be able to hatch straight up. So we removed the turner and placed the egg on a moist paper towel (a tip from an assisted hatch website that said opening the incubator could dry out the egg so it would need the extra moisture).
4) at 18 hours we moved the duckling to a plastic shoe box lined with pine bedding. We placed a small flat dish of water, and a few small pieces of food. The heat lamp was placed and the temperature was 95*. Wondering if we removed her from the incubator too soon? Was it too hot? The incubator was 101* so logically speaking how would 6 degrees cooler be too hot?
Sorry for all the details. I would just really appreciate input. I know inexperience really came into play, and I regret wholeheartedly attempting such a task that ended up losing the poor duckling so early. Hoping to avoid such a loss next time. And hopefully this next round of eggs will go better and be the last one. Which is my next question, is it possible to deter ducks from wanting to nest? We get rid of one and they just build another the next day.
TIA