Like you, I am a newbie and came here to find out that my having 3 Roos and a single hen would not do. I purchased an incubator and started gathering eggs to try to get more hens. Not knowing any better and not thinking about it first, I also staggered my eggs that went into the incubator. After gathering four or five eggs, in the incubator they went with the rest and repeated. Thankfully, cold weather set in and she stopped laying.
After a few weeks of egg cooking, it dawned on me that I can’t do a lockdown only on the eggs ready for lockdown. I purchased another incubator to use solely for lockdown mode. Worked beautifully. I simply moved the eggs ready to be locked down into the second incubator. By the time they hatched and moved to the new brooder I belatedly realized I needed as well and got the lockdown incubator sanitized, fired back up and stable, it was time to put in the next batch.
I now have 12 Roos and 3 hens. LOL. Evidently my hen has the “let’s make as many Roos as possible!” Gene.
Currently, both incubators are full of duck eggs as my DIL and son want ducklings. With these I put all the eggs in both incubators on the same day. I also purchased hygrometers as I read duck eggs aren’t as easy as chickens. With my chicks, I just let the incubator take the temp and humidity. After two weeks with the ducks, I yanked the hygrometers as I had 4 in each incubator and none read the same; although they would all read the same if lined up outside of the incubator side by side. Generally, the gauge on the incubators read close to the midpoint of what all the hygrometers read; thus I decided to have faith in it after all the stress and fear for my eggs from reading all those hygrometers. They’re on Day 15 and appear to be developing nicely.
When I checked my duck eggs at day 10, I did have one with the red ring. I assumed it was dead and threw it away. I had 6 infertiles that I threw away as well. Out of 27 eggs originally, I have 20 still incubating. Not going to get the 100% hatch rate from the start as I did with my chickens, but I’m happy with 20 developing eggs so far.
I found incubating eggs to be ridiculously easy. I am done letting all the terrifying stories give me angst to the point I’m checking temps and humidity every 15 minutes and constantly messing with the temp buttons and opening and closing vents. Once per day worked well enough for my chickens; thus twice a day is all my ducklings are getting. Candling twice is all I’m doing and only doing those to get rid of the infertiles and then again to check them out to make sure they are indeed ready for lockdown. All the stress and angst expended will only shorten my life and I suspect it’s not good for the odds on the hatch rate either.
6 of the Duck eggs hatched on Day 23. They weren’t supposed to go into lockdown until Day 25. I imagine all that turning the incubator up to 101 and 102 I did from the hygrometer readings I did the first few weeks possibly cooked them faster?
9 of the eggs hatched on Day 24. Many of these eggs were shrink-wrapped on both days. As I had never dealt with shrink-wrapped eggs before, I broke all the rules and was determined to save all of these ducks.
I gave them a few hours after they pipped as I knew i wasn’t supposed to mess with them, but I am sorely lacking patience. I peeled back a bit of the shell at the pip area. If the membrane looked like leather, which most did, I peeled all of the shell off the membrane. Then I would carefully rip the membrane down far enough to let the baby get his head out. Many had their heads severely stuck. Once I got their heads up and loose, I would put them back in the incubator, membrane and all, to let them wiggle out of the membrane when they wished to do so. Most did immediately. Some waited a bit.
I only lost one egg in the nightmarish fiasco and it was my own fault. When I got down to 5 eggs, I moved them all to the same incubator as I originally had 10 in each one. When I did, I forgot one had pipped and turned the pip hole away from me. By the time I remembered the pip, many hours had passed as I moved them prior to going to bed for the night. When I looked in the pip hole, I could no longer see the poor duckling moving. I also noticed the egg was much cooler than others I had held. I peeled a bit of the shell and the membrane was leather. Peeled more and opened the membrane to his head and he was cold and gone. I was distraught over it, but considering all I had been through with these eggs, I was happy to get 15 out of 20.
The other four are still cooking in the incubator. One is a black egg that is a Cayuga. I don’t expect him to hatch, but my DIL wants me to wait until Day 31 to pull him. I noticed he had a dent and a tiny crack in the shell where the air sac would be and I suspect he had that from Day 1 and I didn’t notice. The reason I suspect it was there from the beginning is that when I candled, his air sac was the same size it was on my first candle day. From thinking on it, I am guessing that air was escaping out of that hole plus humidity getting in? I assume this guy will be shrink-wrapped as well added to the small size of the airhole, his chances of survival are extremely slim. I suspect he is probably already dead; although he doesn’t feel as cool as the poor duckling I killed due to my stupidity.
I don’t expect the other 3 to hatch either, but again, my DIL is hopeful; thus they’re staying until Day 31. At least they don’t have any pips, cracks, or dents in them and do have mature air sacs. When I candled, I discerned no movement nor could I see their heads or bills. Air sac areas were flat.
I finally DID find some reliable hygrometers, btw. Switchbot. They’re small and fit in my small incubators well and aren’t messed up by the heat. They kept close to the same readings as my incubators through the last week of incubation with zero wonkiness. I purchased them off
Amazon. They had the four small hygrometers, along with a Hub 2 that is the only piece that had a display. It displays the temp and humidity of the room. I checked the readings of the four hygrometers on my phone. At least, if I ever do ducks again, I’ll have reliable hygrometers.
The 15 baby ducks are doing very well and gorgeous imo. I already love them, although I found that I am allergic to down. I love ducks, but doubt I want to go through such a mess again and then deal with all the symptoms of down allergies after hatching. Might be worth it though, but will require some serious thought for me.
