Is this temp ok?? Hatching duck eggs!

[ducklover101202]

I am hatching duck eggs! Tomorrow is only day 12 but I am SO EXCITED! I have been candling them a few times through day 3 to 9 but I am not gonna candle them anymore until at least day 25 to see if they developed or maybe i'll just wait and see but knowing me I will probably candle them on day 25. How many times do you candle your eggs? Also the temp. is staying between 99 and 101 in a home-made still air incubator. The temp. is staying pretty steady for a home-made incubator and the humidity is also staying REALLY steady. It stays in the 60's. It usually stays at 64 ish and does not budge which is good and for the last few days on day 25 at night i'll add more water. The only problem at night when ever I wake up in the middle of the night or in the morning the temp. is at 97. One time i woke up and it was 99.3 which is what it was before I went to bed but all the other times it was 97. Only one time did I wake up and it was 96.something. Why is it going down so low only at night? I get it back up when i wake up and then I go back to sleep and wake up again and it is good. During the day the temp. is really good. It is only at night that it goes lower. I have a dimmer switch so should I make it a little brighter at night? I am just afraid it will go too high because lower temp. is better than a higher temp. Has anyone else ever had this problem? Any ideas to fix it. I have heard that people give there eggs a cooling period everyday so would it be fine or if it keeps on doing this every night will they finally die? I am also losing sleep because i wait for it to go back up when I wake up at night. Also one more question. I know that they lose about 14% of their weight during incubation. At what day when turning will you really notice that the egg feels lighter? Thank you! And I don't spray the eggs. Is that ok?

 

[NancyP]

I am no expert, but from my experience hatching ducks I think you are doing fine.
I have only heard of misting goose eggs.
Good luck.
Nancy

 

[Sweetfolly]

Your temperature is probably swinging down during the night because your house gets a few degrees cooler during the night. I have a borrowed Little Giant incubator running right now (because both my Brinsea Octagon 20's are full, and I had more eggs!) and I know it goes down a degree or two during the night, because the sun warms the house a bit during the day and it cools overnight.

The temperature should be okay. If you really know what you're doing, you could try turning it up at night with a dimmer - BUT, if they're developing fine right now, I'd leave them. A sudden temperature change is a lot more harmful than a gradual swing between night and day. Hopefully, your eggs will be just fine - they may hatch a day or two late.

I think your humidity is too high though. 50-55% is the generally accepted humidity for duck eggs in a still air incubator, and I incubate mine even lower than that at 35-45% with good results. Have you calibrated your hygrometer? If not, you should do so. Instructions can be found here:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=285284

How do the air cells look on your eggs? Here's a chart showing approximately how large the air cell should be throughout the incubation period:

If the air cell isn't large enough, you probably should start misting the eggs - misting causes the eggs to lose more water. Since I incubate my duck eggs together with chicken eggs at a low humidity, I don't mist them.

I candle my eggs every few days. Here's a thread I started of my duck egg candling pictures - you might have fun comparing what you're seeing in your eggs to my pictures: https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=304863

 

[ducklover101202]

THANK YOU SO MUCH! I have been looking for a picture of the air cell for a duck egg but only found a chicken egg air cell pic which the aircell gets bigger on different days. Actually when I candled them on day 9 at night the air sac looked a little bigger and there were veins. I couldn't see the embryo but they had to be developing f the air sac got bigger and there were veins. There was no blood ring. You pictures of you candling will be helpful too! Thanks! And I thought it was bad to candle them every day. Actually it has been a few days since my last candle on day 8 or 9. For two eggs my last candle was day 9 and for the other egg it's last candle was day 8. I guess it's ok to candle them a lot because you still got a very good hatch! Thanks!

 

[1234duck]

Re: Humidity for Duck Eggs.. someone in a post, told me 70-75% relative humidity & 90-95% last 3 days.

and it said Forced Air. ?? Isn't that high? ~ That's the 1st time I've ever heard of such high numbers.