Hands on hatching and help

[AmyLynn2374]

Personally I think its adorable. See, I'm normal.

lol We're "creative".

 

[RubyNala97]

You guys are so funny!!!

 

[chickengirl72]

I'm trying to incubate runner ducks and am having no luck. i have some eggs that have air sacs that are too small for the age of the eggs and was wondering if any people who are successful at correcting this problem could have a look at my post about the eggs and give me some feedback or advice. https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1099126/air-sac-is-way-too-small-need-advice-please i'm pretty sure that i had my humidity too high. it's confusing on lots of the websites and reference books that i was looking at, and i think that i was using wet bulb recommendations instead of %humidity/hygrometer readings.

 

[BigWeenMachine]

He's out!! I'm officially a call duck mommy! Not only is that so awesome but this little guy came from a shipped egg that had a totally detached air cell. I've never gotten a detached air cell to develop, let alone hatch. So lots of firsts for me with this little one! I got him half way out and then was worried sick he was stuck in the shell by the membrane but after a short rest, he pushed himself right out of the bottom of the shell all by himself! Lots of pics coming once he's dry. He's going to be a lone duckling for 2 & 1/2 weeks until my next batch of calls hatch (yeah, I can't believe I'm doing this again). So any advice for keeping a single duckling?

That's the thing with shipped eggs, (we discussed this on another thread a while back) you can not accurately weigh them. There is no way to know how much weight was lost while they were being stored and through transit. What you can do is weigh some of your own eggs next time after they are laid and watch the air cell growth carefully so you know by eye how much weight loss % looks like. Know what I mean?[/IMG]

Yay! He looks like a blue ducky! Bet he's gonna be really cute when he dries off. That is crazy that he hatched with the detached air cell. I thought that was an immediate death sentence to see that but now I might just leave some of them in and see what happens.

My only advice with a single duck is don't let him sleep with you. Archie, my first hatchling that hatched 2 days before his siblings was so sad and lonesome that I let him snuggle up on my shoulder on the couch. Before ya knew it, I had him wrapped in a towel and sleeping in the bed with me because he wouldn't quit screaming at me when I set him down. Maybe go buy him a duck friend from the feed store cos once Archie's siblings started hatching he never squawked again. However, my plan to do this with the noisy turkey did not work. I bought a black spanish and a slate turkey yesterday from Murdochs and that lil Blue Palm brat squealed all night wanting to go back out with his mommy. O, and they do like little stuffed animals too.

I guess I will just have to try the weight loss thing next time and ride out the more than desired weight losses to see what happens.. I think my runners might come a lil early. When turning my eggs this morning I had one that I could feel wiggling around in the egg when I picked it up. Didn't even think of it at the time, but I wish I would have candled to see if it had internally pipped. Guess I will candle it at four when I turn them the next time.

 

[BigWeenMachine]

@BigWeenMachine Here's some to giggle over:
These were from my first successful hatch...lol













See...it's all "normal"

LMAO!!! That is ridiculous. They look like screen shots from a Disney movie!!!

 

[BigWeenMachine]

Personally I think its adorable. See, I'm normal.

So funny how much they like stuffed animals!

 

[tracyjg]

Having a lot of difficulty with methods of hatching. 1. Ducks 2. Little giant3. Pro series incubator. We have a lot of humidity issues. Hatching duck eggs and chicken eggs together. The ducks hatching eggs doesn't make it better. We our getting nasty explosions rot and go. The ones growing our cut short. Air on . Up graded air / heat nebulizers fan on side vaperizer humidifier We have a male backwards gene in chickens. The chickens will not nest on there own eggs. Ducks will. Elements sickness emergencys ect we need to come up with a better solution .

 

[tracyjg]

One issue chicken eggs need to be 60-65 humidity not to go over 70. 99.5 temp not to go over 100.00. And duck eggs 99.5 temp not to exceed 100.00 and at 50-55 on good day. At lockdown. Some say open incubator and spay with water. I have found it kills chicken eggs very quickly. Leaving it alone works better. But we have tryed a number of it last batch. And struggled. Need a better way to hatch all together and mixed between incubators. Let alone trying to deal with emergency. And at the end of last hatch we all got sick so it didn't help much.

 

[tracyjg]

Ducks frist hatch where outside in elements cold and hot mix. At the end very rainy. We decided to take the dog house from chickens and give it to ducks to make a better environment for duck eggs. It's gets very hot hear in summer over 100 temps on a good summer day. We get cold spells in winter. It doesn't snow but still gets frost bit.

 

[tracyjg]

Having trouble- we have several methods. 1. Ducks 2. Little giant incubator 3. Pro series incubator . Both have the upgrade air/heat. Both have turners circulated air both. We have a male gene backwards in chicken eggs. One problem. Humidity is never stable. We have nebulizers attached to both. We have a fan and air conditioning on. We have a vaporizer going.just to stable. We just got the bigger ducks in February they had laid before but we tried them hatching both chicken and duck eggs. We haven't had much luck. I gave up on the ducks and put them in incubator at the end. We keep getting goo and rot and explosions . Room air 80 at moment.we don't want to deal with these issue on eggs ducks have nesting brooding for next hatch. Last hatch ended