Pied Runner X Eggs, Humidity Too Low

[bemba]

Hi guys, long time no post (for me) LOL. Some of you may remember my plans of crossing pied indian runner drakes with call females to introduce the pied gene in the calls (no pied calls in Australia) Well the first attempt didn't work, he mounted and all but must have been to young and a bit too big! Anyway while at a local pond I spotted a beautiful mallard pied duck about the size of a Khaki campbell, she was starving so it wasn't hard to catch her (all domestic ducks that are dumped are culled by the council) brought her home, wormed her, and gave her a good feed. About a week later I introduced her to my pied runner boy.... love at first sight.... seriously she ran straight up to him and started flirting full on LOL. So I thought if I breed these 2 together first, keep 2 really pretty pied daughters, then mate the daughters with my call drakes, it will be much more successfull, then just keep crossing down till eventually I will have retained the pied gene and have ducks that are super small and typey.

Anyway the pied girl has laid and I have 8 in the bator on day 6, candled them last night and ALL fertile

But it is winter here and I cant get the humidity past about 33 percent am worried that this will affect the hatch. Also I have put sponges in there to up the surface area and the bottom of the bator is pretty full, anyone got any other tricks that might help?? I have a duck that was supposed to go broody, she always sets like clockwork after 12 eggs (done it 5 times before) but this time seems she is doing it on purpose

anyway any hepl would be great, cheers guys.

 

[bemba]

anyone at all?

 

[duckyfromoz]

What kind of incubator are you using?? I have had humidity problems too- but have had the incubator on all winter with the central heating in the house on. I have closed off a few of the air vents- added extra water in the channels- and also started lockdown a few days early to try to solve the problem. I also spray the eggs every few days with a fine mist- I watch the size of the airsac rather than measure the humidity- as I find that a good indication of how things are going in the bator. I resorted to using wet face washers and soaking puppy training pads over the top of eggs at times too.

Day six....still along way to go- I hope things turn out all right for you.

 

[bemba]

Hi Ducky, Hope all is well with you!

Well its just a cheap bator that I picked up on farmstock through Joletray Trading, it has worked wonders though, I have had such a great hatch rate during summer, but if its a contained unit does it really matter what the outside humidity is? Thanks for all the handy hints too. PS what do cinnamon runners look like? sounds like a nice colour!

 

[CityChicker]

I think you are already doing about all you can do. If there is no other place in the incubator to increase water surface area, there is not much more you can do. The successful range for humidity is fairly wide though. I can't tell you for sure what level will work for you because it depends on a number of factors. Spraying the eggs with water actually makes them dehydrate more, so if your humidity is already too low I would probably not do that unless the air cells are not growing enough. I agree with DuckyfromOz that you should monitor the weight loss/air cells and try to make what adjustments you can using that as a guide.

 

[bemba]

Will do, thanks guys. I'll let you know when they hatch

 

[tia]

I had a fish tank and lots of plants in my classroom and the humidity was too high for my incubator - at that time I had a Little Giant. I had to move the incubator into another room. The temperature in the room was also fluctuating too much. You might try putting a couple of pans of water out in the room - if your room isn't too big... or bring some plants in. I don't know if this would help you. I live in a pretty humid climate too.