- Feb 27, 2015
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I'm new to BYC, and we are getting ducks! I posted some of these questions on the duck forum, but thought some are incubator specific, so here might be better. I will apologize in advance, because I'll probably ask questions that have already been asked a million times, but everyone here seems so helpful!
I ordered a circulated air hovabator and have 6 Ancona eggs being shipped, and 6 Magpies I'm getting locally. I thought my kids would really enjoy and learn from the experience, so we went with incubation instead of the original plan to get day-olds.. I have read Storey's Guide to Raising Ducks, various Internet articles, and several of the recommended how-tos on here about hatching. I have so many concerns and no idea how people successfully hatch anything!
My current questions are:
Washing eggs before incubating - just see how they look, or automatically wash them?
The 6 Ancona are being mailed...based on the incubating shipped eggs info on here, it seems like I should check air pockets and possibly incubate them in an egg carton if reattach mentioned needs to occur. Do I keep them in the carton the while time they are incubating?
Do I need to spray mist the whole time of incubation?
I read somewhere you need a heat sink when only incubating a few eggs, such as a bottle of water in the incubator. If I have 14-15 eggs, do I need that?
My most worrisome question...I don't want to have crowded ducks. If I incubate 15 eggs, 9 local and 6 shipped and do everything "right", how many can I realistically expect to hatch? I don't know that I have space if all 15 hatch, but don't want to count my ducks before they hatch (harhar) and only incubate eight.
Sorry for the novel, I tend to overthink things. We're so excited! Except for the freaking out part.
I ordered a circulated air hovabator and have 6 Ancona eggs being shipped, and 6 Magpies I'm getting locally. I thought my kids would really enjoy and learn from the experience, so we went with incubation instead of the original plan to get day-olds.. I have read Storey's Guide to Raising Ducks, various Internet articles, and several of the recommended how-tos on here about hatching. I have so many concerns and no idea how people successfully hatch anything!
My current questions are:
Washing eggs before incubating - just see how they look, or automatically wash them?
The 6 Ancona are being mailed...based on the incubating shipped eggs info on here, it seems like I should check air pockets and possibly incubate them in an egg carton if reattach mentioned needs to occur. Do I keep them in the carton the while time they are incubating?
Do I need to spray mist the whole time of incubation?
I read somewhere you need a heat sink when only incubating a few eggs, such as a bottle of water in the incubator. If I have 14-15 eggs, do I need that?
My most worrisome question...I don't want to have crowded ducks. If I incubate 15 eggs, 9 local and 6 shipped and do everything "right", how many can I realistically expect to hatch? I don't know that I have space if all 15 hatch, but don't want to count my ducks before they hatch (harhar) and only incubate eight.
Sorry for the novel, I tend to overthink things. We're so excited! Except for the freaking out part.
