Incubating Mini Silver Appleyard Duck Eggs

[ElizabethChau]

My three Mini Silver Appleyard Duck Eggs. Due to the light you can't see it very well, but the eggs are a lovely, delicate shade of blue.
I made the incubator out of a cardboard box. I know alot of people disprove this way of incubating, but its all I've ever had, so I've gotten fairly good at making it work for me.

I only ordered 3 eggs. I've marked one side with an X the other with an O, to help me track how far I turn them each time.
I received them this morning, let them "settle" for a little over 8 hours, and now they've started their incubating journey.
when it gets down to pip day, I will carefully put in a cloth to line the wire rack so no little webbed feet fall through.

The 28 day journey starts here!

 

[ElizabethChau]

Day 1 has gone great. The humidity has maintains stable and not moved from 50% whatsoever! (I'm very impressed as its a cardboard box incubator after all!) The temperature has also stayed true to 102F. It too has not moved. I am entirely pleased with things so far. I gave the eggs their first turning today as well. I read in a few different places that for the first 24hours, you should just leave it alone. So thats what I did... for 22 hours
I know theres a good chance these mail ordered eggs will end up with nothing.... but I will do my best to give them what they need regardless. Here's Hoping!!

 

[ElizabethChau]

Hello day 5! The eggs are doing great!!! I candled them all on the 3rd evening, and was so impressed to actually be able to see the little babies in there (well, their hearts beating anyway). So on day 4, I took a video and of it and posted it to Youtube! along with my video on my homemade incu-box! Here is a picture I just now took of one of the eggs being candled!
Day 5



Candling one of the eggs! (they all looked like this) day 4

And, my incu-box!

 

[ElizabethChau]

Ok, so this update kinda sucks. I knew for certain today that one egg had stopped progressing entirely.
I noticed it on the 4th day, but I wanted to give it time... just in case. It no longer had any veins and could
only candle what looked like a pea sized shadow in the egg. Two eggs still look really good though!
One is so active in there! While the other has loads of veins and such, but I find it difficult to really get a good
visual of the baby itself... which makes me concerned cause I like being able to see whats going on! But the
veins have stayed and they look healthy so I'm keeping my hopes up for it. Temp stays roughly at 102F at
all times apart from in the evening when the heating kicks on so I have to remove the blanket from the box
so it doesn't get too warm in there. The video below is from today, day 8. I'll apologise now because I was
very distracted with wanting to really SEE the babies to maintain consistent dialog and I had a hard time
getting my camera to really focus in on the eggs. (the con to having only my phone for a camcord!)
Anyhow, I'm sorry you cant see much and thanks for following me on my duck egg journey

 

[ElizabethChau]

I will be attempting a new video tomorrow. one that is actually worth watching My god that last one SUCKED. (I just watched it for the first time on the computer lol)

 

[ElizabethChau]

Well dang it. lol My phone camera just isn't catching the image like I want it to. When I shine my light into the eggs now...
Looking at the glowing egg and all the veins networking inside then seeing the shadow of a duckling inside doing its somersaults makes be think...
Is that what a world would look like to an unborn baby? Hmm. I find this whole process very interesting and enlightening.
I can hardly wait to see if they make it the whole way through incubation! I hope they survive and hatch for me
I bought another candling light, I haven't tried it out yet, but its similar to the one I already have, only the new one has a better reflective piece in it
which makes the LED bulb seem alot brighter. I will continue to keep you updated, and HOPEFULLY I'll be able to get more video/pictures of my eggs being candled!

 

[ElizabethChau]

The new light doesn't work. the body of the light glows when the light is on and makes it impossible to see anything. So I guess I will update with written descriptions

 

[ElizabethChau]

Hooray! I figured out a way to candle and video well enough to see now!
This is at the end of day 16! They both look great.

 

[ElizabethChau]

And then there was ONE. :*(

Bad news
My two yr old went into the spare room and took an egg out of my incubator and dropped it. It was irreparable..I'm so sad about my poor little duck :*(
Just a few more days to go and it would have been fully developed. As it is, the yolk that absorbs into the tummy was still on the outside (size of a marble)
and connected to all the blood veins and such. I'm so crushed. So now I am down to just one egg :**(

 

[sophieoneill]

Aw sorry to hear that, hope your last egg hatches and you get a little ducky