How eggsciting! Call ducks feeling hatchy! *PICS!* MORE!

[duckluck]

Okay, it's probably too soon to even talk about it yet, but I just moved a few call duck eggs into the hatcher...day 24, they're wiggly and one is busily pressing the membrane with its bill (I'm able to see a lot better now that I got one of the high-intensity Egg Lumes) and trying for a pip, so it's lockdown time...let's hope this bears fruit, er, ducklings! My last batch of 4 was a bit ill planned on a staggered setting and they never pipped, died in the shell fully developed. These six I just set in the hatcher are busy, though, I've seen at least three wiggle since they were locked in! Never had a wiggly duck egg yet!

I am also trying a different method with another setting in the other bator...group in the hatcher now was on an auto-turner, group in other bator is being hand-turned 3x daily. I've gotten a lot of ideas in my tool bag here and we'll see what works here.

 

[SilverPhoenix]

Oh, how exciting! Good luck, and I hope they manage to hatch!

 

[Cordell]

You might want to think about drilling a hole in the air sack end of the egg when you see that they have broken thru the membrane inside. That's what we were told to do by several call duck breeders. We did that will all ours and they hatched fine. I think the call ducks bills are to short sometimes to break the egg soon enough to let in air and then they die in the egg from too little air. My husband used an electric drill with a small bit. He practiced on a chicken egg first.

 

[Sweetfolly]

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Sending good hatching vibes your way - and awaiting lots of pictures of the little buggers when they come out.

What color Calls are they? I have a new-found obsession with Call ducks!

 

[duckluck]

This is a group of mixed calls, so I won't know till they come out...I have whites, grays, and self-blacks all freely mixing together at this point. They're SQ ducks but I figured that it wouldn't hurt to allow natural selection to help me learn to hatch before I try to hatch out extreme call ducks.

I have one good sized hole pipped in one egg so far, and two wigglers tonight, one tiny pip maybe on another egg. This is as far as I have gotten with call eggs so far, so all good vibes are appreciated! I will add the hole-drilling to my idea toolbox here of things to try depending on how we do here. To the person who drilled the holes, what do you do with the eggs once you have drilled them? Do you not have a problem with sticky ducklings once you break lockdown to be candling and checking eggs, drilling them and adding them into the hatcher or however you hatch? I candled this group of six, saw one attempting to pip the membrane and I let it serve as my cue to get them into the hatcher and into lockdown for this group. (I found it helpful that I bought a Brinsea high-intensity Egg Lume candler...expensive but worth it because I tried 3 other LED lights and none of them let me see what was going on in the egg like this does. So sometimes cheap is NOT the way to go.)

 

[duckyfromoz]

I had never heard of anyone else drilling a hole in an egg before...but I have been doing it on some of my eggs late last year. But not Call Ducks though. I was just a bit impatient with a few who hadnt pipped when some were already out of the eggs. I found that most of these ones were actually too dry, and needed misting to enable them to hatch. I guess it all depends on the incubator conditions. I used a drill bit and very carefully by hand made the whole in the egg being careful not to apply to much pressure especially when the hole is almost all the way through.

 

[SundownWaterfowl]

Since I started cooling the eggs for 10-15 min per day starting around days 4-7 up until I move them to the hatcher, and misting them during the cool down period, I havent had to make any holes in the eggs.

 

[duckluck]

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I'm going to add this to the tool chest...eggs are toast. The one I had that had a real decent pip, and I mean like 1 inch of shell broken, died in the shell...looked like he got stuck in the membrane. His bill was actually out too! Others did not even pip, two had heads up at the top so when I cracked the eggs I could see faces but no pips. All fully developed ducklings too.

What does your hatch rate look like, Sundown, and what humidity are you running the hatcher at? I was at 65-66% but wondering if it might need a few tics higher. I got a mister today and my handturned set of eggs is going to start seeing some mist tonight.

 

[bemba]

Sundown, do you take the eggs out of the incubator? I havent heard of anyone ever doing this before...... makes sense tho as mum would have a break! Sorry for your loss Duckluck, it is so frustrating especially when they are that developed! you should get some silkies of sundown and use them instead!

 

[SundownWaterfowl]

I just take the top off the incubator, and just leave them in the bator. I hatch at around 70-75% humidity. I dont really pay attention to the humidity during the first 23 days, I just keep track of the air sac size.

My hatch rate last year was in the 90% range I think, I know last year I had at least 1 or 2 100% hatches.

ETA: I heard that letting the eggs cool helps to shrink the duckling a bit, giving them more room in the egg to turn around when zipping.

I dont know, but it works.