Incubating duck eggs

[crissycriss]

I am going to be incubating 18 mallard eggs and 12 pekin eggs starting tomorrow.I was wondering if you can use the dry hatch method with ducks?If not what does the humidity need to be?I have read different amounts.Thanks for any and all advice!! Oh i have never incubated anything before so hopefully this will be a great learning experince for my daughters and myself.

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

Everyone incubates differently. It depends on where you live and your environment as to how to set up the incubator. You should run it a minimum of 3 days, but better to run a week, prior to setting any eggs. You need to have a calibrated thermometer, and a hydrometer as well to measure humidity for you.

Never incubating before you need to get the bator set up and running well. Ducks are not as easy as chickens, they take far longer total to incubate and hatch. They also take longer (rest more often) when they start to hatch.

We have such a high daily humidity level that I have to try and keep the levels in the cabinets under 30% until lock down and then 75-80% We run two thermometers and a hydrometer in each.

 

[crissycriss]

Thank you celtic oats for your reply,great advice. Put chicken test eggs in bator temp were up and down. But thanks to cajun chooks and others i have finally got my incubator temp stable at 100.Will candle eggs in a couple days but not expecting nothing temp were dropping to low.