Incubating ducks and chicks together?

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sourland said:
Welcome to BYC. On the mark comments from @ronott1 and @MillersFarm.
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lazy gardener said:
What Miller's farm said, Staggered hatching can be very tricky. Though I've been hatching for years, I'll not do a staggered hatch, ever!
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Yeah, I’m hoping for the best. Using both incubators, one for hatching the other for incubating on this round. Not gonna stagger next time. And not going to do chicks and ducks at the same time...maybe that will be easier too!
 
MillersFarm said:
So you've been adding eggs to the incubator for the past two weeks? I wouldn't expect many to hatch.. that's called staggered hatching, Most of the eggs will have different lock down dates and will need more humidity than others.. Lock down is on day 25.. Next time i'd collect duck eggs for about a week in a basement or a cool place fat end up until you're ready to put the eggs in the incubator
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Ok. Good advice! Thanks! Crossing my fingers hoping for some! And next time I will do what you said!
 
sourland said:
Starting chicken eggs one week after the duck eggs (mallard derived) works.
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In your experience, do duck eggs require a higher humidity during the incubation period?(first 3 weeks) I'm toying with hatching some duck eggs when I set chicken eggs this spring. I would set the duck eggs 7 days sooner. I incubate at 30 - 40%, and hatch at 65 - 70%.
 
sourland said:
Because of the environment where incubator was situated (earthen cellar) humidity levels were generally slightly higher 45 % or so . I would jack them up during hatch if 'drying' of membranes was apparent.
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Yeah I think that was my problem with my first batch. I tried helping two of them and didn’t help one of them all the way. Their membranes were dry and most of them didn’t unzip. The only one out of 4 made it. Trying 45 for the first 25 days and 18 days on chicks and 60 to 70 on the last days! But my incubators aren’t keeping the humidity at 45 all the time. They keep dropping below 45 so I add a tiny bit of water and then it jumps to 55! It’s annoying! At least I’m home and can watch them good!
 
Momma Jo said:
Yeah I think that was my problem with my first batch. I tried helping two of them and didn’t help one of them all the way. Their membranes were dry and most of them didn’t unzip. The only one out of 4 made it. Trying 45 for the first 25 days and 18 days on chicks and 60 to 70 on the last days! But my incubators aren’t keeping the humidity at 45 all the time. They keep dropping below 45 so I add a tiny bit of water and then it jumps to 55! It’s annoying! At least I’m home and can watch them good!
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50% would still work for the chickens. Humidity can be in a wide range for them.

Normally what happens is that humidity goes up when water is added and then drops after two or three days. The trick is to come up with average humidity. For Example:

Add water to tanks to get to desired humidity. If it goes over a bit do not worry about it.
Wait until humidity goes down 5% or so from desired humidity
Add water again.
Repeat until lockdown

For example:

Add water and it goes to 50%
Wait until it gets to 40% and add water

Humidity is an average over incubation period. You can ignore spikes and dips--just focus on the average.

Humidity is very forgiving and not as critical as temperature.
 

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