Quick: Incubatoing duck & chicken eggs together

[keaton85]

later this week im going to set-up my homemade incubator and have 6 duck eggs, 12 barred rock eggs and 6 rare breeds (idono what they are as im hatching them for someone).

anyway, i was gpi g to start the duck eggs first then addthe chicken eggs later so theh al hatch at the same time. will that would or not a good idea? also is the humidity different for duck eggs? as i run 40/60 for the chicken eggs.


one last question, do the automatic egg turners have a built in timer or do you have to ha e the timmer set-up?

 

[debilorrah]

Set the ducks one week prior to the chicken eggs. They take longer to hatch.

Auto turners are just that. Automatic turners.

 

[Sweetfolly]

It's perfectly fine to start the ducks a week ahead and hatch them together - I do it all the time. Just keep the humidity where you would have it for a chicken egg; if you ask me, most people run their humidity WAY too high when incubating duck eggs. Unless the air cells look too large during candling at any point during the incubation, they shouldn't need more than 30-45% humidity, which is what I run my incubators at, even when they're full of all duck (and no chicken) eggs! You might want to bump the humidity a little higher at hatch-time with the duck eggs in there, 70%+

As far as the auto-turner...it should automatically turn your eggs once or twice an hour or so - you shouldn't have to mess with any settings. Three days before the babies are due to hatch, unplug the turner, take it out of the incubator, and place eggs on their sides or in egg cartons (within the incubator or hatcher, if you have a separate machine to hatch in) to hatch.

Hope that helps!