Hathing duck and chicken eggs!

[mommyofthree]

Pekins are all white, which is why I was surprised to get such a dark duckling. The rest of our ducklings are yellow with just a hint of dark on their heads. I wonder if one of my female pekins mated with a wild duck. LOL

 

[MomMommyMamma]

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This has been kind of a long staggered hatch. We began w/ chicken & duck eggs. When the chicken eggs were due to hatch we moved some of the duck eggs to broody hens and left a few in the incubator. We marked them and turned them twice a day as quickly as possible. Once the chickens begin to hatch they roll the remaining eggs around with all of their stumbling around. Hope that helps.

 

[Jocasta]

You could just start the ducks off a week earlier than the chickens, this way they'd both be ready for lockdown together... Not sure what humidity at lockdown is supposed to be for ducks though - think it's higher than for chickens?

I'm planning on hatching turkeys and chickens in together. Set the Turkeys on Friday and plan on setting the chickens this coming Friday. Fingers crossed for lots of fuzzy butts!

 

[MomMommyMamma]

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Yes, next time (if there is another) I plan to do it that way instead.

 

[ichoudhury]

It does make sense on how this overlap has to be handled. Starting a week earlier definitely give you a upper hand to deal with turning situation and increase of humidity (assuming duck eggs also require a lot of humidity in the last stage).

For me, at the moment only overlapped chicken eggs to worry about

.. Both were shipped eggs (about 5 days apart). I have no broody hen or extra incubator in hand. I am planning to take the turner out on day 18th (for the first batch) and just plan a semi-lockdown period (have x mark on one side and hand turn as quickly as possible for the second batch). I wish I did not do that for my first time trying, I guess I was just over eager