Help! First time incubating duck eggs and don't know if we messed up?

[cara93]

We have 3 Rouen/Mallard mix ducks, 2 females and 1 male, about a year old. The females just started laying this spring.We decided to get an incubator and incubate the eggs, but like the amateurs we are we put them into the incubator all at different stages. To be more specific, we have one group of 12 eggs that were put in on the 23rd of March, one group of 12 eggs that were put in on the 28th of March and one group of 12 eggs that we put in on the 3rd of April. So we have 3 different groups at different stages of incubation(they were all fertile and when candled they are all still kicking), and we are not sure what the best route of action will be when the first group is ready to hatch, because we can't open the incubator but the other 2 groups of eggs will still need to be turned. Any suggestions? We are thinking the best thing to do will be make a homemade incubator to place the hatching group into before they hatch, but if anyone has a better idea please tell me! I don't want to kill any

 

[dotknott]

I don't think a diy incubator is a bad idea. I'm in a similar boat, though it's because I lost a duck who's line I want to preserve, but I have a batch of eggs in my incubator currently. Making a DIY incubator shouldn't be too difficult. I've been experimenting with a covered aquarium in a draft free area of my house which has proven to be remarkably stable so far. The question you need to ask yourself is which one is the incubator and which one is the hatcher?

Which ever one you hatch in will need to be cleaned out before the next batch goes in, but the incubator should be fine with no cleaning as long as you don't have any breakage/infection/exploding eggs for the duration of these incubations.