*~*Runner Duck Club*~*

[qwackers]

Can someone help me out? I am hatching duckling eggs for the first time (choc/fawn/white runners). I got 3 eggs yesterday that are about 2 weeks along (under mom up until the last day, then in her incubator for the day til i picked them up). We candled when we got home and from what i could tell from a bit of research all was well. Then I woke up and my incubator had dropped temp to 93 degrees.

I made a thread asking if they'd be ok, and people said they should be. We candled again today to just make sure (I have 4 kids who are so excited for our new baby ducklings), DH and I are pretty sure one may be dead, but I want to be sure before we toss it and tell the kids.... It looks like there's blood in the egg and I don't see movement like I do in the other 2..... is my poor baby dead????

If so, does anyone know where I can get 1 or 2 fertile runner duck eggs or day old ducklings cheap???? I cant afford the crazy cost for ordering just 1 or 2 from a hatchery, and the farm I got them from sold me her only 3 fertile eggs. Thanks! Sorry this is so long lol, I wanted to explain the situation and am a newby to all of this. (we have 3 week old chicks we got as day olds, not sure what they are yet, and the 3, possibly 2, ducklings we are trying so hard to incubate) Thanks again!

Heya it's probably abit late now but I just hatched 5 runners last weekend. Sadly no.6 died by day 7 of incubation. It showed in the form of a blood ring. I think if you can see any blood it's a bad sign. I'm afraid it's probably died. I hope you find some more to put in and your others have an easy hatch. Here are my little babies this evening

 

[Davlyn]

You can google sexing young ducks. It talks about the voice (females will quake and males will peep) and looking for the curling tail feathers on a male. But that is when they are starting to get feathers. Anyway, look it up and good luck! I am hoping my runner duck eggs hatch next Saturday and will be wondering the same thing! Male or female!?

Thank you

 

[Chick a dee1023]

Heya it's probably abit late now but I just hatched 5 runners last weekend. Sadly no.6 died by day 7 of incubation. It showed in the form of a blood ring. I think if you can see any blood it's a bad sign. I'm afraid it's probably died.
I hope you find some more to put in and your others have an easy hatch.

Here are my little babies this evening

Thanks. Yeah it's def gone, I opened the bator to turn them and it smelled AWEFUL so we tossed it. I found more, but we decided to wait and see if these other 2 make it, then deciding if we want to hatch more or just get ducklings lol. My kids are young and are so excited about "their baby duckies" so if these don't hatch I may just grab a few for them before I go the hatching route agian.

Your babies are adorable!!! Sorry you lost one

 

[qwackers]

Oh no thats not nice. Luckily we found ours before it started smelling. When you say you found more do you mean more bad ones? Poor duckies. Hope the other two make it you've still got a couple of weeks. I don't know of anyone who sells half incubated eggs, it's abit risky like with the eggs cooling too much. Ou are the eggs clean btw? We think that's why that one of ours died due to the shell being filthy. If they are using warm water on abit of kitchen towel give it a light rub and dry ASAP.
Hope your kids don't get too upset if they realise what's going on!

 

[Chick a dee1023]

Oh no thats not nice. Luckily we found ours before it started smelling. When you say you found more do you mean more bad ones? Poor duckies. Hope the other two make it you've still got a couple of weeks. I don't know of anyone who sells half incubated eggs, it's abit risky like with the eggs cooling too much. Ou are the eggs clean btw? We think that's why that one of ours died due to the shell being filthy. If they are using warm water on abit of kitchen towel give it a light rub and dry ASAP.
Hope your kids don't get too upset if they realise what's going on!

So far we have only lost that one

We are on day 20 and when we candled them last night (we got really cold and turned on the heat... then fell asleep and the bator went to 104!) they were moving a lot and looked ok from what we could tell (being the first eggs I've ever candled, thats just a guess by the way they were moving like crazy, it was almost like they wee saying GET THAT LIGHT AWAY FROM ME!! LOL). I found someone selling eggs and it's not going to cost me a fortune to ship them, so I'm having her send them around the 6th when these are due to hatch. I am also getting EE bantam eggs from her too I also have a new bator coming to me and Lady amherst & Red Golden pheasant eggs coming next week! I'm addicted already and it's only been about 2 weeks since I got my first ever chicks and only a week or so since I put the runner eggs in the bator!

LOL, I need an intervention!

. My DH is like "oh no, we are going to be sleeping outside so the birds have a bigger palce to live!" LOL

 

[Chick a dee1023]

Oh no that's not nice. Luckily we found ours before it started smelling. When you say you found more do you mean more bad ones? Poor duckies. Hope the other two make it you've still got a couple of weeks. I don't know of anyone who sells half incubated eggs, it's a bit risky like with the eggs cooling too much. Ou are the eggs clean btw? We think that's why that one of ours died due to the shell being filthy. If they are using warm water on abit of kitchen towel give it a light rub and dry ASAP.
Hope your kids don't get too upset if they realise what's going on!

Oh, and the kids were really upset, but, I went to the feed store a few days ago and ended up coming home with a barred rock chick LOL! That took their minds off of the lost duckling for a while. Plus I told them about the 5 runner and 5 EE bantam eggs and the pheasant eggs coming soon so that helped as well! My son is a bird lover- any bird and hes hooked, but he especially likes the lady & golden pheasants and RUNNER ducks (oh and wants a trumpeter swan... i drew a FIRM line there... NO WAY am I getting ANY swan, let alone one that's even LOUDER than the others LOL!). The one that died was the dirtiest egg, BTW, but it wasnt that bad, but hen again, it died so maybe it WAS a bit dirtier than it should have been, I was just afraid to clean off the protective layer if I cleaned it, so I left it alone.

 

[DukesAngel]

Soooo I bought these runner ducks on Ideal ... they don't stand exactly upright? This isn't really what I wanted at all.

Case in point..


They don't waddle but they don't live up to the pictures I've seen of runners. The worst part is that I have 7 of these fake runner ducks. I've been searching in vain to find some runners not from a hatchery that I can buy that don't have to be hatched.
'
Anybody have any insight?

 

[stonykill]

Soooo I bought these runner ducks on Ideal ... they don't stand exactly upright? This isn't really what I wanted at all.

Case in point..


They don't waddle but they don't live up to the pictures I've seen of runners. The worst part is that I have 7 of these fake runner ducks. I've been searching in vain to find some runners not from a hatchery that I can buy that don't have to be hatched.
'
Anybody have any insight?

looks like Ideal ripped you off and sent you Runner mixes. Beautiful ducks. Just not Runners.

 

[Keystone Waterfowl]

There are lots of breeders out there that have quality runners. If you can't find one in your area Holderread in Oregon ships runners and has nice quality.

 

[DukesAngel]

There are lots of breeders out there that have quality runners. If you can't find one in your area Holderread in Oregon ships runners and has nice quality.

Thanks for this. I will be putting an order in with them in May. In the meantime I'm going to see if any of the current babies I have are going to be upright birds. If not then I'll sell them off.