MARCH Hatch-A-Long 2015: Please Read the First Post to JOIN the H-A-L

[paris_r]

got back from day trip today to find thermometer in hottest section reading 111! its one of those egg ometers, main unit says it was not 100 but another memory one on the side says peak of 108. dont know how long to take to tell if they all died or not. about 25 eggs from my first setting of the 17th.


Edited by Staff

 

[poult]

Hoping I did the PM correctly... A neighbor lost her female duck a few nights ago (poor drake is all alone now). She didn't know she had a nest and was laying, and discovered it shortly after the duck was killed. Long story short, small town less than a square mile in size, literally in the middle of nowhere, rumor has it I'm the local chicken expert and can do anything (these rumors are lies, don't believe a word of it). So I was contacted and recruited to try and hatch 3 lone duck eggs. I have never done duck eggs before, and I am quite nervous about it. I generally have a 90%+ hatch rate with my own chicken eggs, but we all know anything could go wrong. 21 days is bad enough, 28 will be pure torture. I'm fairly certain they aren't Muscovy eggs, but I honestly don't know the breed. The eggs are a bit dirty, but not filthy. One problem, though. One egg has a couple of small cracks on it. Membrane is still intact, and the cracks are in the air cell area, so I'm hoping it will be okay. I put some quick dry clear coat nail polish on the cracks, because I didn't have anything else. Set them yesterday afternoon.

I'm the town chicken expert in my little town too lol I actually have helped a lot of people with there birds it took some time but I think everyone in my town knows that I'm the chicken girl & can practically solve all bird/animal problems.I can't do everything obviously but I do have a wide range of experience with all sorts of animals & especially birds.I live for birds they are my everything.Love them to death & I have a gigantic heart for them all animals really.If I can help an animal I will.So about that cracked egg though.Its to late now but it would have been better off without the nail polish.The cracks will allow in bad bacteria so I can see why covering the cracks seems good but you actually are partially suffocating all that part of the egg.Eggs have pores all over their shell & they transfer water and oxygen through the pores & to keep out bacteria.When you put something on the surface of the egg it blocks the pores like if you ever mark your eggs do not use a marker that will block the pores a graphite pencil will be safe.I would try & hatch it since you only have a small critical batch of eggs but if it gets any odd clouding in the air cell area or any weird looking blobs that's bacteria growing not your baby duckling.In that case get rid if the egg so it doesn't inffect the others but make sure it's bacteria that's growing before you chuck the egg.If you have more questions I would love to give any help

 

[rmcclure]

I wouldn't keep the cracked ones.Those just allow bacteria into the egg which can end up killing them & polluting the others.Or so I've read.

We sealed the cracks so bacteria and such shouldn't be a problem plus so far the eggs are forming normally, I would hate to toss a perfectly good egg I have heard of people hatching cracked eggs before as long as it gets sealed it isn't usually a problem

 

[Varglet]

Thanks for the info. I've hatched many chicken eggs before. I only put the polish on the cracks, not a huge blob over a large area of the egg. I know about pores, oxygen, bacteria, etc. Only questions I have are about humidity for duck eggs. Several good sources have very conflicting numbers on humidity. I usually do dry hatch with my chicken eggs. I think I have good numbers now, after more research into it.

 

[poult]

I never put a cracked egg in my incubator but since you have a critical situation I wish you luck.Well ducks need higher humidities then chicks obviously so 50-55% I think would be appropriate.I would spray them if you could to just stay between those percents.

 

[Lamancha]

[COLOR=000000]got back from day trip today to find thermometer in hottest section reading 111! its one of those egg ometers, main unit says it was not 100 but another memory one on the side says peak of 108. dont know how long to take to tell if they all died or not. about 25 eggs from my first setting of the 17th.[/COLOR]

Edited by Staff

How are your eggs? What a bummer. Mine have gone up to 108 before and they were fine. It was only for about an hour though.

 

[Varglet]

Yeah, the only reason I put it in was because of the situation. I'm keeping the humidity around 50%. Not too sure about lockdown though. Some say raise to 80%, other say 65% then 80% once they pip.

 

[poult]

65% is good no higher oh my gosh! 80% that's a lot!

 

[paris_r]

How are your eggs? What a bummer. Mine have gone up to 108 before and they were fine. It was only for about an hour though.

i can see at least 5 dead from it, i have many clears to begin with-including my shipped malays, from what i see so far 5 that were viable are dead, including my only lavender silkie egg. from what i read they say to wait 24 hours to find out. my incubator has hot spots and so not every one got the temps that high, plus not all my thermometers agree (i have them marked as to how much they are off from each other but not calibrated to true temps). this will be a small hatch-and i set 50 eggs! my d'uccles are having fertility issues with really young roos and older hens, the low temps, shipped egg issues and now this!

 

[Lamancha]

i can see at least 5 dead from it, i have many clears to begin with-including my shipped malays, from what i see so far 5 that were viable are dead, including my only lavender silkie egg. from what i read they say to wait 24 hours to find out. my incubator has hot spots and so not every one got the temps that high, plus not all my thermometers agree (i have them marked as to how much they are off from each other but not calibrated to true temps). this will be a small hatch-and i set 50 eggs! my d'uccles are having fertility issues with really young roos and older hens, the low temps, shipped egg issues and now this!

Well hopefully they are just dormant trying to recover.
That's always how my hatches are too. If I set 20 eggs hoping for 20 chicks, only 3 hatch. If I set 50 eggs hoping for 20 chicks, 48 hatch.