Hi all!
First off, I want you to know that I was experimenting with this hatch. After reading all the dos and donts of duck incubation, I wanted to test things out and form my own conclusions. I always thought that the conditions under which a duck would hatch eggs in the wild were a lot less stringent than the "requirements" for an acceptable incubator hatch would be. I tried to make less than ideal circumstances to see if the eggs could survive or not.
1. I orderered two different sets of eggs on ebay. One was for 8+ of Khaki Campbells and the other was for 10+ of Silver Appleyards.
2. The KC's arrived first. I received 16 eggs, so that was a shock. I had only wanted a few of each breed, and I figured that was what would hatch out of shipped eggs. That was when I decided to experiment with the hatch. I let them rest for about 12 hours and into the bator (Hovabator Genesis 1588 - no turner) they went.
The Appleyard eggs arrived two days later. I received 12 eggs. After they rested for two hours, into the bator they went, alongside the KC eggs.
3. After turning the eggs three times for the first couple of days, I got busy/lazy and only turned them once or twice per day.
4. At first Khaki candling, I had 6 clears, so out they went. The remaining 10 eggs had great veining. At the AppleYard candling, I had 1 clear and 1 uncertain. The others were looking great.
5. Relative humidity was kept around 60-65% (I don't have a wet bulb), although it did go down to 39% once. Temp remained between 99.5 and 100.9 throughout the entire hatch (except when the incubator was opened for turning and candling, which was very frequently!
6. As I have a 6 year old I'm homeschooling, we made a lesson out of duck development and sometimes candled daily so she could note the changes. (Throughout all of this the uncertain Appleyard remained uncertain.)
7 The KC's started rocking and peeping on day 24. I stopped turning them and turned only the Appleyards. The following day, all 10 of the KC's had pipped. I regularly opened the bator to check for pips and the progress. (That's another big no-no!)
8. I decided to sprinkle water on all the eggs because some of the pipped membranes seemed to be a little dry. The relative humidity went up to 85%.
9. All of the Khaki Campbells hatched within the next 24 hours.
10. The Silver Appleyards were really quiet during the KC hatch, so I was concerned that they weren't going to make it.
11. I removed the shells and chicks at various times, trying to keep it cleaner. After the KC's had finished hatching and the last two dried enough to be put in the brooder, I removed all of the Appleyard eggs from the incubator, laid them on the floor and cleaned out the bator (It was really stinky) quickly and thoroughly. I then put the eggs back in the bator. They had probably been out for about 10 minutes, tops.
12. Later that evening, I checked on the eggs and noticed some pips. I finally decided to pitch egg #24, the one that had been questionable all along. It was dark under its shell and showed no signs of life, so I figured it was rotten.
13. Within the next 36 hours, all 10 of the remaining eggs hatched.
14. I now have 20 healthy happy ducklings (pics under two different postings in the Ducks forum) from shipped eggs that I tried to ruin. How did this happen? Other people can't get any shipped eggs to hatch no matter how much they go "by the rules" and baby their eggs while I purposefully did everything wrong, but still had a good hatch. This isn't fair at all!
I'm probably going to get a lot of scolding/criticism for this post, but I genuinely want to understand how my eggs could have possibly hatched despite all of the rule breaking on my part.
Thank you for your insight.
First off, I want you to know that I was experimenting with this hatch. After reading all the dos and donts of duck incubation, I wanted to test things out and form my own conclusions. I always thought that the conditions under which a duck would hatch eggs in the wild were a lot less stringent than the "requirements" for an acceptable incubator hatch would be. I tried to make less than ideal circumstances to see if the eggs could survive or not.
1. I orderered two different sets of eggs on ebay. One was for 8+ of Khaki Campbells and the other was for 10+ of Silver Appleyards.
2. The KC's arrived first. I received 16 eggs, so that was a shock. I had only wanted a few of each breed, and I figured that was what would hatch out of shipped eggs. That was when I decided to experiment with the hatch. I let them rest for about 12 hours and into the bator (Hovabator Genesis 1588 - no turner) they went.
The Appleyard eggs arrived two days later. I received 12 eggs. After they rested for two hours, into the bator they went, alongside the KC eggs.
3. After turning the eggs three times for the first couple of days, I got busy/lazy and only turned them once or twice per day.
4. At first Khaki candling, I had 6 clears, so out they went. The remaining 10 eggs had great veining. At the AppleYard candling, I had 1 clear and 1 uncertain. The others were looking great.
5. Relative humidity was kept around 60-65% (I don't have a wet bulb), although it did go down to 39% once. Temp remained between 99.5 and 100.9 throughout the entire hatch (except when the incubator was opened for turning and candling, which was very frequently!
6. As I have a 6 year old I'm homeschooling, we made a lesson out of duck development and sometimes candled daily so she could note the changes. (Throughout all of this the uncertain Appleyard remained uncertain.)
7 The KC's started rocking and peeping on day 24. I stopped turning them and turned only the Appleyards. The following day, all 10 of the KC's had pipped. I regularly opened the bator to check for pips and the progress. (That's another big no-no!)
8. I decided to sprinkle water on all the eggs because some of the pipped membranes seemed to be a little dry. The relative humidity went up to 85%.
9. All of the Khaki Campbells hatched within the next 24 hours.
10. The Silver Appleyards were really quiet during the KC hatch, so I was concerned that they weren't going to make it.
11. I removed the shells and chicks at various times, trying to keep it cleaner. After the KC's had finished hatching and the last two dried enough to be put in the brooder, I removed all of the Appleyard eggs from the incubator, laid them on the floor and cleaned out the bator (It was really stinky) quickly and thoroughly. I then put the eggs back in the bator. They had probably been out for about 10 minutes, tops.
12. Later that evening, I checked on the eggs and noticed some pips. I finally decided to pitch egg #24, the one that had been questionable all along. It was dark under its shell and showed no signs of life, so I figured it was rotten.
13. Within the next 36 hours, all 10 of the remaining eggs hatched.
14. I now have 20 healthy happy ducklings (pics under two different postings in the Ducks forum) from shipped eggs that I tried to ruin. How did this happen? Other people can't get any shipped eggs to hatch no matter how much they go "by the rules" and baby their eggs while I purposefully did everything wrong, but still had a good hatch. This isn't fair at all!
I'm probably going to get a lot of scolding/criticism for this post, but I genuinely want to understand how my eggs could have possibly hatched despite all of the rule breaking on my part.
Thank you for your insight.
