Putting the duck eggs in soon! Due March 27th!!! HELP NEEDED!

[luckyduck]

We used a still air home made incubator to hatch duck eggs, and tho we had to monitor humidity and temps carefully, by cracking the lid a bit, spritzing eggs to raise humidity, we found the eggs to be way more tolerant of change than chicken eggs, and hatched out 14 out of 16 in a staggered hatch over a period of 3 weeks. Couldn't do the lock down, weren't experienced at all, and learning on the fly with BYC forums. Knowing more now, I wouldn't do a staggered hatch, even tho we only lost 2 at an early stage. Their shells were very hard tho, and most needed a bit of help once they pipped. Warm washcloth, a bit of hard outer shell picked off. Good advice on this intervention in BYC forum.

 

[TattooQ27]

Quote:
I am only on my first hatch so by no means an expert but from all of my reading I *think* the temp readout that you would get from the wiggler is more important than the air temp. The air temp in my incubator is consistently reading a degree or two higher than my super expensive freezer thermometer (the probe is in a bottle of glycol and the thermometer is certified accurate to 1/10th of a degree). Anyhow, air temp is important but the temp inside the eggs is what you really want to monitor, at least from what I have seen. Also, make sure you have calibrated the thermometer to make sure you are getting an accurate idea of what the air and wiggler temps are.

Good luck!