Incubating Eggs of different ages

[bellah1]

Do u measure the humidity? If so what do you keep it at in the brooder during hatching?

 

[Irishgirl]

We don't really measure the humidity. Yes, I know I probably should, I just don't know where to get a humidity gauge. (Keep in mind we live in Houston, not far from the water, and it's very humid most of the time here anyway.)

 

[Irishgirl]

We have ducklings!

28 days ago I set 4 duck eggs in the brooder, and today we have two kicking, fluffy, adorable li'l babies! The other two made it to day 28, and were fully formed, but they died in the shell.

I think it was a problem with the humidity, because when the first one pipped an air hole and I looked inside, the inner membrane (the one with all the blood vessels in it) was sticking to the duckling. I realized what the problem was and poked a air hole in the two eggs I felt movement in, then wrapped everything but the air hole in strips of wet paper towel. **Next time we do duck eggs I'll try to get a hygrometer. (Humidity measurer. Did I spell that right?)

So I spent the night in the living room, because I just knew that they were going to dry out and die without me.

But, they made it past the first 12 hours o.k, so I think they'll make it to adulthood.
Tomorrow I get to do it all over again, because the silkies are hatching!

 

[yellowflower]

That's too bad you lost 2 but you got 2 that are alright. Do we ever really know the reason a chick/duck doesn't make it out of the shell?
My silkies always hatch early so keep that in mind. I would love to see pics!

 

[yellowflower]

Any silkies yet? How are the ducklings doing?

 

[Irishgirl]

The ducklings look great. They are strong enough to walk around and eat and drink, and are going back to the guy that we got the eggs from. If we get a bigger place with a pond he'll give us more to raise so we can have some of our own. I'll try to take pics before we give them back tonight. We let them have a short swim in the bathtub today and they were beyond cute! We didn't want to wear them out, so we just let them in for a few minutes them dried them off.

The silkies have pipped internally and so far 4 of the 6 look good. You can hear them peeping. I absolutely love silkies. They are so sweet. I can't wait to see the babies.

 

[Irishgirl]

We have 2 silkie babies!!

3 more have pipped and one died in the shell.

The duckies went back to their owner (he gave them to me for the hatching experience), but we do have some pics to download.

 

[Irishgirl]

Another silkie died.

 

[Irishgirl]

Here are pics!

 

[Irishgirl]

More baby pics!

A hatching duckling.

A resting just-hatched duckling.

Ducklings on their way to their new home.