just set some eggs!!!

[Hatch me if you can]

Just set some eggs today. My first set of "ornamental" duck eggs.
Bottom row is a grab bag of what we could collect today, (possible Mallard/NA Pintail), two middle rows consist of Mandarin eggs, (except the little one on the end that was also part of the grab bag, Teal of some sort). Other three little eggs are Cinnamon teal 1 more mandarin, and 2 of who knows? The Mandarin eggs came from a white hen and normal drake. Super excited about what we will get with the hatch!!

 

[BYC-user-174785]

Good luck! Where you get all of those eggs from? To me it does not look like there are many teal eggs, but there are three at least.

 

[Hatch me if you can]

The eggs came from a local breeder who has quite a few birds in the in closure, (almost 2 acres), its great to go see. They have benches all around the perimeter so you can stop and watch from many different places. I almost got some sharp wing teal and some ring teal but we only gathered 1-2 of each and they thought it best to put them up in there own for the display. You are correct there are 3 confirmed Teal eggs and we just took a guess on the other small egg. So we may have something that will surprise us.

 

[destinduck]

Good luck as well. I like a varied surprize. Hope you get a banner hatchout. Keep us posted.

 

[Hatch me if you can]

I will definitely keep you guys posted! Also to you more experienced with the ornamental, I misted my eggs for the first time today and was wondering if it needs to be a very fine mist or just spray a few times non discriminant? My incubator has a set time it "cools" for as well as auto humidity control. If I was to get really technical about those two things what would be optimal for them? (ex: 60 min. cooling/ 45% humidity with the every day once a day misting) The last part is what I have my incubator set up for now. Thanks for all the help and encouragement!!

 

[destinduck]

I try to mist mine a coupla times a day. But some dont mist at all and only open to add water. It also depends how your climate is where you live. It does seem to be best to keep the bator real clean for the ornamental waterfowl and maybe even use distilled water. Something I have not done but will try next time. Distilled water cant hurt for sure. Some on here swear by this when trying to incubate the wild-type species from day1. Hope this helps.

 

[Hatch me if you can]

Perfect!!! I always use distilled water when I incubate. I was getting tired of the clean up with the Styrofoam incubators and the crust that it created in the reservoirs so I made the switch to distilled and now I have a Brinsea eco advance so I don't ever have to mess with opening it up to turn or add water. (its pretty dummy proof) It makes a bad hatcher look good and a good hatcher look great! everything I have put in it has turned out good if it was fertile. That was chicken and quail eggs until now, this will be the best test I have put it through!

I should probably knock on some wood rite now.....

 

[Hatch me if you can]

DAY 7 candled



Here is an update on my eggs!!!! I labeled all of the eggs with what they are and anything with an X is infertile. So out of 24 eggs 6 were infertile with a possible early quitter, with 12 eggs being Mandarin 3 were infertile. First week down!!

My question to all of you with more experience than I, Is the first week the hardest to get them through?

 

[destinduck]

Yes. Also I would at least give them 10 days to make sure they fertile bebore ya chuck the bad ones. They dont look like they are all the ones you have marked manderin eggs are such to me. Although its tough to say with those pics. For instance, the three end ones on the third row down look too big ,white and round kinda looks like merganzers or treeducks maybe. It doesnt matter anyway. You will know in 30 days or less whats what. Thanks for the update and continued good luck!

 

[Hatch me if you can]

First off thank you for the info very much! Secondly you may be rite about those eggs, we collected all of the "mandarin" eggs from one nest, (hen was white and the drake was normal coloring), however there were other mandarins in with them and an assortment of other ornamental ducks as well. So they could very well be something other than Mandarin. The eggs have different shades of cream to very light brown so I am sure they were being parasited by others. I guess that all adds to the flavor.

(the eggs are also angled a little to mimic being in a nest cavity so that may also be what you are seeing as far as shape)