New to this, hathcing without incubator?

[Rocky Rhodes]

To clarify my previous post. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but one opinion is not superior to another. The FACT is, death is the last option. I mean the absolute final option.

 

[TheYLWFlock]

What a discussion! I do believe that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but also that when it is possible, avoid turning opinions into arguments.

I pride you for trying your hardest to hatch this egg. It’s hard to let something die when you know you could have helped it. But it’s still a long ways away from hatching and truthfully, the chances are quite high that it won’t make it. Even if it is still alive near lockdown, how exactly will you “lockdown”? With no proper bator it’s hard to get the correct temperature and HUMIDITY crucial for hatching.

And as others have said, what will you do once it’s hatched? You may have raised more than one wild bird before, but with only one, it is MUCH harder. Ducks are very social animals and need friends to develop healthy in terms of physically and mentally. When alone they have no one to copy off of and learn with, no one to play with, heck, it won’t even know what another duck looks like! Just some things to think about.

 

[Rocky Rhodes]

Without an incubator this discussion is mute. With an incubator it will be a long shot. If you succeed in hatching this egg, you should find a place where it can be raised with other ducks of similar age, maybe a wildlife rescue or even a farm with other young ducks. I agree with others that it will not be able to survive in the wild for long if raised by humans alone and then released. That being said, any chance at life, in my opinion, is always better than no chance at all.

 

[Spartan22]

So, I found this Muscovy egg (how do I know it's a Muscovy egg? Well it was near a muscovy nest but I guess the duck had too many eggs/ it rolled away, but I couldn't get it back into the nest, the duck wouldn't let me) so I took it with me, and well, I'm trying to hatch it. I'm just a poor college student so I can't really afford an incubator atm, especially since this is just a one-time thing. I think it's going pretty well, it's been 4-5 days now, the egg is alive and well, but I'm a bit worried as I saw all these things that are supposed to be done (specific temperature, humidity, checking the weight etc...) and I have done none of these things.
Right now the way I'm providing heat to it is to simply have it in a small round container that fits it with some fluffy feathers I found near the duck's nest, rolled in a socked with my laptop's charger on top of it to heat it. It's a cheap solution I know but that's the best I can come up with. I wanted to know if anyone had any tips for me or a better solution.
I'm misting the egg once-twice a day, turning it an uneven number of times too. I think it's about 12-14 days old since I saw the nest a week prior t finding the eggs then had it for 4-5 days.

I'm also trying to reproduce the condition it might be under in the wild, (taking off the battery from times to time as if the mother left to get food etc) idk if it'll work but any and every advice is greatly appreciated

Keep on going and let your nurturing instinct be your guide. Few years ago there was an Australian lady that found an egg on her front door mat. She placed it in a bowl and with desk light and a make shift humidity she was able to hatched the exciting creature with the cheering of hundreds from all over the world. Everyone was curious and everyone watching/reading her adventure was on the edge of there seat including me, when I found her article on BYC just few weeks ago but this happened few years ago. Success stories are uplifting and failure stories are great teachers also.

 

[Aelrift]

Have you candled the egg at all to see if there is anything alive in there?

I have yes, the embryo seems to be fine, it's been a week now so I have hope it'll hatch. I don't know if any ducks would take him because all the ones on campus have like 10-15 ducklings already, and there's a bunch of birdsof prey around too. WOuld be sad to save its life to have it die to a hawk. My plan was to raise it until it's about a month old then introduce it to all the other ducks on campus and coming back maybe 3 times a week until it's old enough and then let it live with them. People feed the ducks every day there , and in my experience if you take a "pet" and let it live long enough with its wild kin it'll become accustomed to its new lifestyle.

I've also made this tiny robot thing that measures temperature and humidity, so it'll be fine. Who knew these engineering skills would be handy so soon? I've also contacted my zoology professor, and even though he's technically and herpetologist he loves birds and he says the hardest part will be when it actually hatches and the 3-4 days following it

 

[Aelrift]

Without an incubator this discussion is mute. With an incubator it will be a long shot. If you succeed in hatching this egg, you should find a place where it can be raised with other ducks of similar age, maybe a wildlife rescue or even a farm with other young ducks. I agree with others that it will not be able to survive in the wild for long if raised by humans alone and then released. That being said, any chance at life, in my opinion, is always better than no chance at all.

Keep in mind that when I say "wild", I mean "not entirely domesticated". These ducks live in a lake around a ver very frequented campus. They get fed by humans everyday. So it's "The Wild" , but more like, the semi-wild.

 

[Aelrift]

This is obviously implied at me

inkingface: (shame there are no thinking emojis) If you look at the answers above, I've they're not compltely wild ducks. So that shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Aelrift]

Keep on going and let your nurturing instinct be your guide. Few years ago there was an Australian lady that found an egg on her front door mat. She placed it in a bowl and with desk light and a make shift humidity she was able to hatched the exciting creature with the cheering of hundreds from all over the world. Everyone was curious and everyone watching/reading her adventure was on the edge of there seat including me, when I found her article on BYC just few weeks ago but this happened few years ago. Success stories are uplifting and failure stories are great teachers also.

I've never heard of that story! What did the egg hatch into?

 

[Aelrift]

When alone they have no one to copy off of and learn with, no one to play with, heck, it won’t even know what another duck looks like! Just some things to think about.

I know all this, I've stuided bird behavior in class. As I said in a previous answer, when he's big enough i'll introduce it the the other ducks on campus. In the meantime, I hope my pet hamster is friendly and will keep it company

 

[Aelrift]

These are the temmperature and humidity readings I get. 35 C with 53% humidity, are these good? The temperature varies from 35-36 and the humidity is always around 53 as well. I've seen people say the humidty should be around 80% and some say around 50% so I'm a bit confused...

Also following the guide on this website, the air pcket looks more like a day 1 than a day 10, I've seen that I should lower the humidity to make it bigger but lower by how much?