HELP! 5 eggs from a very special duck...need help making sure they hatch!

[DemonicFowl]

Great news! We have 2 growing embryos! One thing that concerns me is that in the past, her eggs often lost moisture faster than the others. I believe this is due to the unusual anatomy of mamma duck & there's not adequate waxy coating so is it ok to keep the humidity a little higher the first couple weeks?

That's great! Whats your normal humidity level you use?

 

[TREBORSKOORB]

To be honest, I do have trouble getting the humidity level up. This time, I've got a humidifier running in the room with the bator. I'm also keeping a folded, wet paper towel. It's raised it to 65% so far. Since there's only a few eggs in there, there will be plenty of room for more paper towels or sponges.

 

[casportpony]

I do think that you're supposed to turn them at least 3 times a day. More is better, I think, but it should be an odd number of times.

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

I don't use a still air bator, but you might want to research the proper temp and humidity, 'cause I think 99.5 is too low and. RH of 65% for the first 25 days is too high.

-Kathy

 

[TREBORSKOORB]

I'm turning them 6 to 8 times a day. The "odd number" rule really doesn't apply to me though because I turn them day and night. I don't sleep well, so I usually turn them twice through the night. The reason for the odd number is so that they don't get left on the same side night after night. Also, I don't do a full turn. I turn them about 1/3 of a turn each time. I've had better luck with that in the past.

 

[TREBORSKOORB]

Thank you, Kathy. I had never heard that about the increase in temp before. I've always used 99.5 for the first 25 days and then reduced to 98.5 for the last few days. Many times mine would hatch right on time or a day early so I figured it was OK. I just read what you're talking about though and think I'll raise it a 1/2 a degree. Afraid to do much more than that at this point. Of the 2 that are developing, the first one showed signs of life a day sooner than the 2nd one so I'm being sure to move them around to different spots inside the bator.

 

[TREBORSKOORB]

Concern: I put more wet paper towels in the bator because the humidity level was only registering 55% and I wanted to try to keep it at 60%. I noticed the eggs' air pocket was not increasing in size. I put another hydrometer in and it showed 90%!!!!! Please tell me I haven't made a fatal mistake! I candled them again and they appear to be growing and moving around just fine. I'm just afraid that the humidity may have been too high for too long. I removed the wet paper towels and the extra container of water and raised the lid for a bit to let the humidity escape. Any thoughts on this?

 

[randerson846]

How long was the humidity that high, if it was leads than an hour, they should be fine, it wouldn't if made much of a difference, but I raise the lid, as it can let the temperature go down, haveu put the lid back down, and what day are they on ?

 

[DemonicFowl]

How are the eggs?