Congrats! That's great news. You'll have a better experience if you get nice, fresh, eggs with little dirt on them from a local source. Eggs that you have to wash, eggs that are shipped, eggs that are handled rough, or old eggs will not hatch as well. If you have a friend or neighbor or 4H pal with fertilized eggs, ask them for some, even if they don't have exactly the breed you want.
Homemade incubators can be tough. Set it up, run it for a week or so, measure temperature and humdity for a while before you set the eggs. You need to be able to keep the eggs at 99.5°F at 50 to 75% humidity for 28 days. An aquarium makes a better initial brooder (days 1 to 7 after the hatch) than an incubator, but you might be able to make it work. You'll need heating elements (heating pads, heat lamps, ceramic terrarium heaters, etc) good thermometers, and dishes of water to keep the humidity up. You'll need to turn the eggs 3 times a day, and read up on candling eggs for proper development. Again, it can be really straightforward: you set up the incubator, get the settings tuned in, turn the eggs, and 28 days later you have ducklings! Or it can be hard, and you worry every step of the way.The more you learn about the process the easier it will be.
Her only condition is that I have to hatch them myself. I must admit that this does scare me I'm afraid that I'll get it wrong. She wants us to make an incubator out of an aquarium. I've done all my research on raising ducklings that i don't know anything about hatching. whenever I've read about making an incubator the directions sound like gibberish. HELP PLEASE...................................
