June Hatch A Long

[CluckNDoodle]

I have a question for those of you that have hatched ducks. I'm new to ducklings but always candle my eggs before putting them in the incubators to check for any cracks, detached air cells, etc. When candling the Mallard eggs I noticed that I could see a tiny pink spot and sometimes a tiny ring inside every egg, not a meat spot but almost looked like a super early embryo started. Is that normal or did all of these eggs start to develop for a day or two before I got them?

 

[PirateGirl]

I have a question for those of you that have hatched ducks. I'm new to ducklings but always candle my eggs before putting them in the incubators to check for any cracks, detached air cells, etc. When candling the Mallard eggs I noticed that I could see a tiny pink spot and sometimes a tiny ring inside every egg, not a meat spot but almost looked like a super early embryo started. Is that normal or did all of these eggs start to develop for a day or two before I got them?

Do you have an egg on your counter (doesn’t matter if it’s a chicken egg) that you can candle and compare to? Any egg without development should look the same (chicken or duck). Do you live somewhere warm? Did your eggs ship from somewhere warm? It’s possible development started in shipping.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Do you have an egg on your counter (doesn’t matter if it’s a chicken egg) that you can candle and compare to? Any egg without development should look the same (chicken or duck). Do you live somewhere warm? Did your eggs ship from somewhere warm? It’s possible development started in shipping.

Thank you! If they're supposed to look the same as chicken eggs then there's something fishy...I have eggs all over the place, and I've hatched over 80 chicks this year and I've never seen this in any of my eggs but it's also my first time hatching ducks so I thought maybe it was a duck thing. It's blazing hot here in Georgia but I actually drove to the location 4 hours from here to pick up the eggs and never left them in the hot car, I even brought them into the restaurants with me when we stopped to eat.
Well hopefully if it's early development they're still viable! I don't know when she pulled them or what kind of environment she kept them in...

 

[PirateGirl]

Thank you! If they're supposed to look the same as chicken eggs then there's something fishy...I have eggs all over the place, and I've hatched over 80 chicks this year and I've never seen this in any of my eggs but it's also my first time hatching ducks so I thought maybe it was a duck thing. It's blazing hot here in Georgia but I actually drove to the location 4 hours from here to pick up the eggs and never left them in the hot car, I even brought them into the restaurants with me when we stopped to eat.
Well hopefully if it's early development they're still viable! I don't know when she pulled them or what kind of environment she kept them in...

I didn’t candle mine that early, but I’ve cracked open and cooked plenty, they look the same as my chicken eggs except the yolk to white ratio is different.

 

[ariri30]

I'm really late in giving my two cents on this question but I have had success moving eggs from the incubator to under my broody hen. I had one hen that I put 3 eggs under on day 18 when I put the rest of the eggs on lockdown in the incubator (she wasn't a proven broody yet so I didn't give her many). All 3 hatched successfully and she's happily raising them now. I currently have 3 or 4 broodies all sitting on fake eggs playing musical nest boxes, lol. I have one unproven clumsy broody hen in the mix out there that busted an egg underneath her so I'm going to wait until the last minute to put the eggs under them again, lol. I may give the other 3 hens eggs and give her just one chick to see how things go. Once they prove themselves as good broodies I don't hesitate to give them whatever they want but I've never had this many hens go broody at once, it should be interesting! lol

Today is day 19. Should I give it to her. She’s very good at sitting on the eggs. She comes out once a day to do her business and go back in about 15 minutes

 

[jolenesdad]

I did candle mine and they look just like a chicken egg however I could see a dot. I assumed that it was the chalaza like maybe it’s more pronounced in a duck?

But I also looked st videos on YouTube of people candling after 1 day, and you can see a shadowy circle in the middle of the yolk. I’m wondering if that’s what you’re seeing.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Today is day 19. Should I give it to her. She’s very good at sitting on the eggs. She comes out once a day to do her business and go back in about 15 minutes

If you want her to raise the chicks then I personally would go ahead and put the eggs under her now. If she's unproven then it would be an equal amount of risk to either put the eggs under her now or sneak chicks under her in the middle of the night. Some hens won't accept mystery appearances of chicks and other hens will adopt every baby they see. I find most hens if they're going to be finicky it's toward chicks that just appeared rather than an egg swap. They seem to be more accepting of eggs just to play it safe.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

I did candle mine and they look just like a chicken egg however I could see a dot. I assumed that it was the chalaza like maybe it’s more pronounced in a duck?

But I also looked st videos on YouTube of people candling after 1 day, and you can see a shadowy circle in the middle of the yolk. I’m wondering if that’s what you’re seeing.

I'm going to candle them again tonight since it's been a few days and attempt to take pictures. It may simply be that the lady I got the eggs from had them outside in our 90-100 degree weather and they started to develop.

 

[AquaDuck]

I have a question for those of you that have hatched ducks. I'm new to ducklings but always candle my eggs before putting them in the incubators to check for any cracks, detached air cells, etc. When candling the Mallard eggs I noticed that I could see a tiny pink spot and sometimes a tiny ring inside every egg, not a meat spot but almost looked like a super early embryo started. Is that normal or did all of these eggs start to develop for a day or two before I got them?

That sounds strange, never seen it in my duck eggs.
If they've started developing then hopefully they'll keep on going in your bator. Good luck!

 

[Bookworm0124]

Has anyone swapped eggs from a duck? My girls sitting on a few but I ordered some from Quacky Acres to swap out and put under her