Hello all. Well, it looks like DD just may get her duck wish. My sister (an agricultural school bio teacher) received a batch of ring necked pheasant eggs to hatch for a school project. The gal delivering them "threw in" a pair of duck eggs she picked up on the way to the car. Sis had no room in her incubator for them, so they sat in a box, outside, in 60-70 deg weather overnight. Enter DD, who has been pestering me for ducks for two years.
Lacking a second incubator and having no clue what else to do with them, the two orphan egglets are now sitting in my incubator with a batch of bantam chicken eggs that are midway through their incubation. I hope that wasn't a mistake, but there was no denying this young lady a chance to "save the babies," and I had to put them somewhere! Temp is running steadily at 99.5 to 100.0. Humidity fluctuates between 49 to 55, but for the most part stays pretty close to 52-53.
I have NO idea what I'll do when we go into lock-down later this week! At the very least, we'll candle then and see what we've got. If there's any sign of growth, I guess I'll be borrowing an incubator, or maybe I can slip them under my broody and hope for the best. In the meantime, I'll try to get some pics of the eggs and see if they can be identified. They are smaller than a "large" grocery-store egg, but at least twice the size of the bantam eggs in the 'bator. Their overall shape is more elongated than a "standard" chicken egg, and they have a very pale, greenish tint to them. The family that provided them raises only game birds. I have no idea if they are mixed or not.
With all that disjointed info in mind ... am I anywhere near on the right track with these? And am I totally nuts for thinking this could work? I've never "done" duck eggs without a broody, before, so I have absolutely NO idea what to expect. ACK!??!!
Lacking a second incubator and having no clue what else to do with them, the two orphan egglets are now sitting in my incubator with a batch of bantam chicken eggs that are midway through their incubation. I hope that wasn't a mistake, but there was no denying this young lady a chance to "save the babies," and I had to put them somewhere! Temp is running steadily at 99.5 to 100.0. Humidity fluctuates between 49 to 55, but for the most part stays pretty close to 52-53.
I have NO idea what I'll do when we go into lock-down later this week! At the very least, we'll candle then and see what we've got. If there's any sign of growth, I guess I'll be borrowing an incubator, or maybe I can slip them under my broody and hope for the best. In the meantime, I'll try to get some pics of the eggs and see if they can be identified. They are smaller than a "large" grocery-store egg, but at least twice the size of the bantam eggs in the 'bator. Their overall shape is more elongated than a "standard" chicken egg, and they have a very pale, greenish tint to them. The family that provided them raises only game birds. I have no idea if they are mixed or not.
With all that disjointed info in mind ... am I anywhere near on the right track with these? And am I totally nuts for thinking this could work? I've never "done" duck eggs without a broody, before, so I have absolutely NO idea what to expect. ACK!??!!
When I was a kid, we had a bantam hen named Henny Penny. When her persistent efforts to hatch a golf ball failed, we gave her a mess of duck eggs - the only fertile eggs we had. Henny Penny hatched out eight perfect little mallard ducklings. Watching them copy Mama to scratch in the dirt was too funny, as was watching her try to wing-herd them while they scrambled to stay in line behind her. Picture a line of hand-holding children following a corckscrew path at a dead-run ... much like playing "Crack-the-Whip. But the best part was watching her reaction when they discovered the kiddie pool ... because chicks don't swim! It's a shame we don't have video of that. It was positively priceless!
