Orphan duck egg incubation help

[mirror]

I found a duck egg next to a lake yesterday, like just lying on the open ground next to a bunch of ducks. The egg looks clean and unbroken, but other than that I don't know how old it is or species or anything.

I've made a homemade incubator using a plastic tub, heating pad, foil, a container of water, and some window screen. Temp seems to average about 102 degrees at the highest setting, though I've only been able to test the EGG'S surface temp with my infarared thermometer.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I don't really know what I'm doing.

 

[Kiki]

It may or may not be fertile.

 

[mirror]

Yeah that's what I've read! It seems like there were lots of male ducks, but I don't know whether that increases the likelihood of being fertile or not.

 

[mirror]

So I found a little fan to add to my makeshift incubator, and a digital house thermometer. Not sure how well either of them are working.

According to this thermometer, the air temp is 83f and the humidity is around 53%

I've turned the egg twice, once at around 9am and once about 1pm.


Edit: with a little fiddling the humidity has gone up to about 70% which I think may be too high? The temp seems to have stalled around 90f

 

[mirror]

I can't seem to get it any hotter, darn. I may have to use the ceramic heat emitter instead, now that it finally came in the mail. My lizards can be content for a while with their regular light for a week I think. Now I'll just need to figure out how to rig the darn thing into a incubator without setting my house on fire!

 

[Erka97]

99.5 is the temperature for ducks, I believe, and what matters for them is the actual temperature of the egg.
70% humidity is definitely way too high for incubation outside of hatching time, it may cause your duck to drown at hatching time or be "mushy" if it makes it that far, and I suggest moving any water you have in the incubator out; I've done complete chicken hatches at 35% and I can't imagine the difference is that extreme for ducks.. I just looked again at your picture, and yeah that thing of water you have in there is way too large even for hatching time!
You can candle it to see if it's alive at around day 5, you'll begin to see blood vessels then.

 

[mirror]

99.5 is the temperature for ducks, I believe, and what matters for them is the actual temperature of the egg.
70% humidity is definitely way too high for incubation outside of hatching time, it may cause your duck to drown at hatching time or be "mushy" if it makes it that far, and I suggest moving any water you have in the incubator out; I've done complete chicken hatches at 35% and I can't imagine the difference is that extreme for ducks.. I just looked again at your picture, and yeah that thing of water you have in there is way too large even for hatching time!
You can candle it to see if it's alive at around day 5, you'll begin to see blood vessels then.

Thanks for the advice! I've never done anything like this before so I've kinda been running around pulling parts from stuff I already have to get this incubator to work. Obviously it's lead to some mistakes! The humidity is around 45% now and dropping steadily. Temp on the egg itself reads about 97f

 

[mirror]

So I couldn't post until now due to the move! I found another egg, but the first didn't make it. I believe this was due to low humidity, because I had difficulty keeping it stable throughout the incubation period.

However the other egg did hatch! I ended up having to help it hatch, but it made it! I'm a little concerned because I'm a newbie to this kind of thing, but the little one seems alive and energetic enough.

 

[gimmie birdies]

I found an egg in my chicken coop that was a duck egg. It was big white with a thick shell, but not big enough for a goose egg. (my hens didn't lay white or eggs that big.) We did live near a pond. my guess a young duck just felt like pinching one off. It ended up not fertile. I did drive 9 hrs. to MT and visited a lady who has geese, she gave me 6 eggs.. going under broody hens.

 

[adstowe]

So I couldn't post until now due to the move! I found another egg, but the first didn't make it. I believe this was due to low humidity, because I had difficulty keeping it stable throughout the incubation period.

However the other egg did hatch! I ended up having to help it hatch, but it made it! I'm a little concerned because I'm a newbie to this kind of thing, but the little one seems alive and energetic enough.

That's awesome! We need pictures