One duck egg

[Peach9610]

Second time trying to hatch, first time my home made incubator or sneaky kid because the lid wasn't down correctly I woke up to 95 degrees and lost the 3 I had left from a dozen. Anyways I set my eggs on Feb 3rd so I am thing today is lock down.
I am not sure to do with my duck egg because it won't be hatching for another week. I got a dozen from e bay and she added it, any suggestions appreciated.

 

[Cowdoggin]

Just Leave it in the incubator until it hatches, then put in with your chicks...Even if you are using en egg turner, ITs ok to just lay the duck egg down with chick eggs and leave it alone. This will give it time to right its self anyway..

Shipped eggs are harder to hatch out anyway, All that bouncing around and some people are not careful during the shipping/handling process either.

AS far as you "incubator" getting down to 95* That may OR may not be the cause of losing your last 3 ducklings.. AS there are a 'thousand" things that can go wrong, including simply Bad eggs to began with..And Sometimes they make it to Term, but simply do not hatch. I have hatched out Chicks, standard and banty, Domestic/true Duck and Muscovy, for the past 8yrs... One time I had had the cord of my incubator get caught cross a corner, cause the lid Not to get closed all the way..after we had candled them, about 2wks into incubation, Woke up to a temp. of around 78*, candled my eggs and Nothing. Put them Back anyway and let them warm up.. All 30 eggs were still going when we rechecked later that day.

Had a Muscovy decide to brood Where ALL the chickens wanted to lay.. about 3 1/2- 4 wks later ( in early March {in Idaho}) an egg got rolled out of the nest at some point the day/night before. Found an ICE COLD Egg the nest morning. Candled it, and Nothing, put it in the incubator to warm it up, had chicken eggs going so incubator was already up to temp. 4 hrs later, we checked on it, AND that was the Happiest Little Duckling You ever did see. WE marked the egg and gave it back to Mom. YES!!!! that "Little Guy" hatched TOO..

Then there is the 1st time stuff... I did get lucky though, out of 39 eggs, we had 11 hatch, But the biggest part is Our Incubator, like everyone, else's DOES NOT run the "scientific way". AND that is the hardest part of incubating, Learning HOW your incubator runs.. so you dont drown your Babies.. or dry them out to much.

 

[Peach9610]

Thanks for the encouragement I am excited, 2 days to go. Finishing my brooder tonight not sure what kind of bedding to use read mixed review of newspaper big shreds to just paper towel. Also I am going with a regular light bulb using a big plastic clear tote and drilling air vents on one side and an opening for a light on the opposite side, that's the plan anyways.

 

[KoopOnTruckin]

I've also got several duck eggs in the incy with my chicken eggs. I started with 14 chicken and 12 duck eggs, now down to 12 chicken and 11 duck eggs after candling a few nights ago. I've got the chicken eggs in lockdown now, set to hatch by Thursday evening. The ducks will take another week, so I left the egg turner on to continue rotating them. To keep the chicken eggs from turning, I placed them in a small cardboard box (a Kleenex box with the top half cut off) and left that in there.

As for your brooder, I suggest lining the bottom with flat newspaper, then covering that with pine bedding. That way you can roll up the newspaper and throw everything out when you need to clean up. It's amazing how quickly a brooder can get filthy, and it just gets quicker as they get bigger. And try to keep the water a bit higher up, like on a brick or something, to keep them from splashing around in it too much and getting the bedding all wet, which adds to the smell and attracts bugs.

Good luck with your hatch!

 

[Peach9610]

Very clever with the brooder cleanup and Kleenex box. My eggs are also suppose to hatch Thursday 12 chickens hopefully, have been turning my duck egg by hand. The duck egg goes on luck down ha ha on the 24 th although I have no idea what kind it is. What bulb do you use for your heat source? I have a red heat bulb but I read they can be a dangerous.
Thank you for tips and good luck with your hatch
Thank you for the advice.

 

[KoopOnTruckin]

I also use the red lights for heat, they can be dangerous but you just need to be safe with their placement. What color is the duck egg?

 

[Peach9610]

My duck egg is white, I am hoping it's a Peking duck. What kind do you have? I have to do more research on raising a duck. Can I feed it the chick starter after it hatches?

 

[KoopOnTruckin]

I also have Pekin ducks, they are great! I currently have a male and female, and they make me ducklings that I sell to help pay for feed costs. The best thing (imo) about them is that they aren't any more work than chickens. I raise them together usually, they eat the same food and drink the same water. The 2 things that are different from chickens are that they need water, some sort of a pool or pond, as they get older - it's just not right for a duck not to have a pool - and sometimes ducklings need extra vitamins to help their bones grow correctly. I think it's a Niacin deficiency if I remember correctly. I used some Brewer's Yeast tablets, found in the dog vitamin aisle of your local pet store, crushed up 2 into the water every time I fill it up for the first couple weeks. Other than that, they are no different than chickens. And just like chickens, don't feed ducks layer feed until they have laid their first egg.

I have read a lot about the feed regimen for ducks, and there's a lot of interesting stuff out there. Almost daunting. I say just feed starter until they are 8 weeks old or so, then switch to grower/finisher until they're laying.

 

[Peach9610]

What other kind of stuff do ducks and ducklings and chicks enjoy eating. I saw a cute video of some Perkins ducks swimming in a pool slurping up some spinach leaves. I know chickens like the mealworms and vegetables and non citrus fruits scraps, is it the same for ducks.

 

[Peach9610]

To day is the big hatch out day

I hear chirps but no cracking of the eggs. I thought my mind was playing tricks on meat first and it was wishful thinking. Humidity is 66-67 and temp 99.5 to 100 . I guess I have to be patient and see what happens. 13 mixed eggs blues,greens, browns and then my white duck egg.