- Nov 16, 2015
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First attempt at incubator hatch:
Hi guys, the time is approaching for my first ever incubator ducklings to hatch, though I have had ducks for a couple of years now and have observed, candled and assisted in plenty of naturally incubated hatches. However this is my first attempt at hatching eggs 100% without the aid of a duck (apart from laying the egg obviously!)
I have a couple of questions/concerns.
As a background, here is my incubator setup, plus my candling observations so far...
My still air incubator is home made and consists of the following:
A small chilly bin(cooler/esky) with a light fitting and a standard 60watt fluorescent bulb
Controlled by a temperature controller I purchased online which has a probe which is placed where I choose within the incubator, and has been placed on or between the eggs closest to the light.
Temperature is set to the temperature in Celsius I choose and when it gets 0.1 degrees below the set temp, the lightbulb is turned on, and as soon as it hits the target temp the bulb goes back off.
I originally set it at 37.5 but noticed a second thermometer i placed in there kept showing higher temps just over 40. That thermometer was a cheap one and prob not reliable, but was showing the correct temp when I out it in my armpit. So I decided it was better to risk the temp being a little low, than too high and adjusted the setting on the temperature controller to 37.00 so when it hits 36.9 the bulb goes on. I was going to put a fan in from my old laptop but read that in many cases hatch rates were better with still air, so decided to go ahead without a fan this time, and simply set up an initial 5 eggs in the incubator, facing air cell upward in a old egg carton i cut up for this purpose.
I have been turning the eggs 3 times daily,by hand and sprinkling a bit of water over them when I turn them.
I have also been cancelling them from a few days in.
2 eggs were removed early on due to being apparently infertile leaving 3 eggs
1 additional egg was added a few days after the first ones, from a nest one of my ducks had abandoned.
Just over two weeks in, another duck abandoned her nest which contained two eggs which were near hatching, (about to internally pip) so these guys got added to the incubator and have since hatched and are both doing well so far. After the hatched and dried out I removed their shells plus so,e paper towels I had placed them on, and at the same time moved the other eggs off the egg carton holder thingy I had been using and placed them on clean sterile paper towels and dressings (from a couple of sterile dressing packs a nurse friend gave me), and did my best to position them on their side but with the air cell end slightly elevated compared to the pointy end, Si liar to the position I see the eggs in in my ducks nests.
Another egg was added just before the two hatchlings mentioned above, from a duck I wanted more offspring from and which had already been incubated a few days by a duck who then lost interest. That egg appears to have died early as there is a red squiggly line similar to the red circle u see when they die early. I pretty sure it had already died when it went into the incubator.
So that leaves me with 4 embryos, one 2 or 3 days behind the other two. As far as I can tell, all viable eggs put in the incubator, are now alive and moving and close to full term. So, to date the incubator has been successful, but of course the proof is in the pudding (in other words how many actually hatch out alive).
Of the 4 eggs in the incubator, one is smaller than the other 3 and another (not the small one) is on I think day 21 or 22.
All eggs are showing movement, and I the duck embryo is taking up most the space in the egg as you would expect.
It is now day 24 and my main concerns/questions are these:
1: the air cells don't seem to be as big as I thought they might be. Less than 1/3 of the egg. According to what I have read, an egg incubated under low humidity will have a large air cell. I find it hard to imagine these ones have been given too much humidity, (aside from the couple of days where I had the two ducklings hatching in there, as I was putting a lot more water in then to try and avoid shrink wrapping, which both ducklings I think got on a very minor level anyway - both needed help to externally pip, and were unable to zip, but got themselves out after I opened up the top of their egg shells)
2:The duckling in the smaller egg, appears to be getting ready to internally pip. It's air cell is larger than the other eggs and seems similar to what I have seen in naturally incubated eggs that have hatched fine. I can see the beak moving around and pushing against the membrane, the same as I have seen in my naturally incubated embryos. The other 3 eggs do not appear to be close to internal pip yet. I can still easily visually some veins etc around the top of the egg near the air cell, and see beaks which are not in position up near the air cell.
Having said that, I have not before this, been able to candle eggs every single day like I have done with these incubator ones. Due to upsetting broody mummy ducks, who tend to then flap about and knock their eggs around, I have restricted candling of naturally incubated eggs to around 2 weeks, then when due to hatch, and not candled outside that unless there was a bad smell making an egg check necessary!
So anyway, was wondering if anyone might have either some photos or drawings which show the size of the air cell from days 22-26 or so, and whether anyone can tell me whether smaller eggs tend to hatch sooner? I did a quick google and did notice that call ducks apparently hatch at 26 days. So thought maybe the smaller egg was developing a little faster due to its size...
All eggs are from ducks who have laid eggs which have hatched under either themselves or one of their ducky mates (my ducks are all very caring and sharing when it comes to where they lay their eggs, and who actually sits on the nest!)
Finally if the air cells are too small when they start to actively hatch, is there anything I can do to try and improve the outcome?
Also if you have incubated eggs with ducklings that are actively moving about right the way through, can problems like humidity (assuming that's behind any undersized air cells) still cause them to die during hatch?
Hi guys, the time is approaching for my first ever incubator ducklings to hatch, though I have had ducks for a couple of years now and have observed, candled and assisted in plenty of naturally incubated hatches. However this is my first attempt at hatching eggs 100% without the aid of a duck (apart from laying the egg obviously!)
I have a couple of questions/concerns.
As a background, here is my incubator setup, plus my candling observations so far...
My still air incubator is home made and consists of the following:
A small chilly bin(cooler/esky) with a light fitting and a standard 60watt fluorescent bulb
Controlled by a temperature controller I purchased online which has a probe which is placed where I choose within the incubator, and has been placed on or between the eggs closest to the light.
Temperature is set to the temperature in Celsius I choose and when it gets 0.1 degrees below the set temp, the lightbulb is turned on, and as soon as it hits the target temp the bulb goes back off.
I originally set it at 37.5 but noticed a second thermometer i placed in there kept showing higher temps just over 40. That thermometer was a cheap one and prob not reliable, but was showing the correct temp when I out it in my armpit. So I decided it was better to risk the temp being a little low, than too high and adjusted the setting on the temperature controller to 37.00 so when it hits 36.9 the bulb goes on. I was going to put a fan in from my old laptop but read that in many cases hatch rates were better with still air, so decided to go ahead without a fan this time, and simply set up an initial 5 eggs in the incubator, facing air cell upward in a old egg carton i cut up for this purpose.
I have been turning the eggs 3 times daily,by hand and sprinkling a bit of water over them when I turn them.
I have also been cancelling them from a few days in.
2 eggs were removed early on due to being apparently infertile leaving 3 eggs
1 additional egg was added a few days after the first ones, from a nest one of my ducks had abandoned.
Just over two weeks in, another duck abandoned her nest which contained two eggs which were near hatching, (about to internally pip) so these guys got added to the incubator and have since hatched and are both doing well so far. After the hatched and dried out I removed their shells plus so,e paper towels I had placed them on, and at the same time moved the other eggs off the egg carton holder thingy I had been using and placed them on clean sterile paper towels and dressings (from a couple of sterile dressing packs a nurse friend gave me), and did my best to position them on their side but with the air cell end slightly elevated compared to the pointy end, Si liar to the position I see the eggs in in my ducks nests.
Another egg was added just before the two hatchlings mentioned above, from a duck I wanted more offspring from and which had already been incubated a few days by a duck who then lost interest. That egg appears to have died early as there is a red squiggly line similar to the red circle u see when they die early. I pretty sure it had already died when it went into the incubator.
So that leaves me with 4 embryos, one 2 or 3 days behind the other two. As far as I can tell, all viable eggs put in the incubator, are now alive and moving and close to full term. So, to date the incubator has been successful, but of course the proof is in the pudding (in other words how many actually hatch out alive).
Of the 4 eggs in the incubator, one is smaller than the other 3 and another (not the small one) is on I think day 21 or 22.
All eggs are showing movement, and I the duck embryo is taking up most the space in the egg as you would expect.
It is now day 24 and my main concerns/questions are these:
1: the air cells don't seem to be as big as I thought they might be. Less than 1/3 of the egg. According to what I have read, an egg incubated under low humidity will have a large air cell. I find it hard to imagine these ones have been given too much humidity, (aside from the couple of days where I had the two ducklings hatching in there, as I was putting a lot more water in then to try and avoid shrink wrapping, which both ducklings I think got on a very minor level anyway - both needed help to externally pip, and were unable to zip, but got themselves out after I opened up the top of their egg shells)
2:The duckling in the smaller egg, appears to be getting ready to internally pip. It's air cell is larger than the other eggs and seems similar to what I have seen in naturally incubated eggs that have hatched fine. I can see the beak moving around and pushing against the membrane, the same as I have seen in my naturally incubated embryos. The other 3 eggs do not appear to be close to internal pip yet. I can still easily visually some veins etc around the top of the egg near the air cell, and see beaks which are not in position up near the air cell.
Having said that, I have not before this, been able to candle eggs every single day like I have done with these incubator ones. Due to upsetting broody mummy ducks, who tend to then flap about and knock their eggs around, I have restricted candling of naturally incubated eggs to around 2 weeks, then when due to hatch, and not candled outside that unless there was a bad smell making an egg check necessary!
So anyway, was wondering if anyone might have either some photos or drawings which show the size of the air cell from days 22-26 or so, and whether anyone can tell me whether smaller eggs tend to hatch sooner? I did a quick google and did notice that call ducks apparently hatch at 26 days. So thought maybe the smaller egg was developing a little faster due to its size...
All eggs are from ducks who have laid eggs which have hatched under either themselves or one of their ducky mates (my ducks are all very caring and sharing when it comes to where they lay their eggs, and who actually sits on the nest!)
Finally if the air cells are too small when they start to actively hatch, is there anything I can do to try and improve the outcome?
Also if you have incubated eggs with ducklings that are actively moving about right the way through, can problems like humidity (assuming that's behind any undersized air cells) still cause them to die during hatch?
