Pekin Duck Club!

[Miss Lydia]

Well then, how do I know if the egg is fertile when its brand new?

you crack it open and look for the bulls eye only way to know with out cracking is to incubate for at least 5 days.

 

[cluckcluck3499]

you crack it open and look for the bulls eye only way to know with out cracking is to incubate for at least 5 days.

Usually we can tell after a day or 2. We use a high grade flashlight

 

[duckityduck]

Id like info about pekin ducks.lots of info about ducklings but very little about older ducks. My ducks are about 6 months old and are two drakes, curled tails.I've read drakes are quiet. Mine chatter all the time.what can i use for disenfecting their surroundings. I've been using vinegar but that doesn't seem to be helping.also the only feed in my area is growth/finisher.all other is for laying hens.please any and akl info for keeping my ducks safe and happy.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Usually we can tell after a day or 2. We use a high grade flashlight

Really wow that's great I can start to see something on day 4 .

 

[luvmychicken]

Usually we can tell after a day or 2. We use a high grade flashlight

Really wow that's great I can start to see something on day 4 .

I use the flashlight on my cell to candle. Works great.

 

[luvmychicken]

I believe I first started seeing a curl around 11 weeks.

Can you tell by this picture???

 

[Miss Lydia]

Can you tell by this picture???

this is a curl

one on the left

 

[luvmychicken]

Can you tell by this picture???

this is a curl

one on the left

Mine are about 3 to 4 months old. Not sure about the age. They were small when I got them a couple of months ago.

 

[luvmychicken]

Hopefully I have 1 drake.

 

[JadeComputerGal]

Well then, how do I know if the egg is fertile when its brand new?

I'm with @Miss Lydia on this. Once you get your incubator, I'd give it 5-7 days before you candle them.

Just in case it helps, I'll tell you our routine:

• We collect eggs every day/night during laying season. Each egg gets marked on top with a #2 pencil. The day of the month goes on top, and we also put a small mark on the side to indicate which pen it came from.
• Each night, any egg that was laid before mid-afternoon goes in the incubator. This mostly means any egg that was laid early in the morning. For ones that were laid in the evening, which some of our ducks do, those go into the incubator the following night and get the number for that day. The number is the day incubation started, not the day the egg was laid.
• Before putting the eggs in the incubator, we do a quick candle to trace the air cell with the pencil, and also to look for cracks or any other abnormalities.
• The eggs are rotated every night and on an auto-turner all the time other than lockdown.
• On Sunday evenings, we candle all eggs that have been in the incubator for at least 3 days. The air cell gets marked again, and we can usually tell at that point what's fertile. We don't bother with the ones that were set since the prior Thursday evening. The reason for that is I kind of have a policy of not bothering the eggs for the first 72 hours other than a daily turn, and I also don't like the time it takes to determine if a very early egg is fertile when it doesn't matter much anyway. If I do that and it's fertile, it goes back in the incubator. If I do that and it's iffy, it still goes back in the incubator, so I don't find a reason to do it.

The reason I said I'd give it 5-7 days if I were you is that it can be difficult to tell prior to day 5 if you aren't used to looking at a lot of eggs, and day 7 is even easier. Once you get used to candling, you can go through it amazingly fast and spend only a few seconds on each egg.

So what kind of incubator are you getting?