Letting them collect won't change the hatch date. Sure you didn't count wrong? Some of my eggs are laid several weeks apart, but as long as they're set all together they should hatch on the same day. Unless I don't understand what you mean, lol. Can you post a pic of the air cell? I've had a lot of wonky air cells and they always make it just fine.
I would post a picture but they're all on lockdown since two decided to start hatching. I'm 100% sure I didn't miscount because I just recounted. I put the dates on my calendar. They're on day 25 now, day 26 if you count the day I set them. The two that are hatching seem perfectly healthy and even more robust that the last two I hatched. None of the others are internally pipped. I didn't even know these guys had begun to hatch until I went to candle last night and heard cheeping and then saw holes in the eggs! They'd pipped hours earlier and I had no idea because I wasn't watching for it yet. I decided to try a method of incubating I'd seen for chickens which was dry incubating. I couldn't find anything about it for ducks but I thought it was be interesting to see how it went. Is it possible that a lower humidity could have made them hatch earlier? I live in a humid place so it stayed around 45-55% without any water added.
I didn't realize incubating upright was bad until yesterday when I discussed it with a friend, so next time I'll lay them down since I turned them by hand anyways. Surprisingly, none of them have quit yet. My incubator is forced air and I didn't know I needed to recalibrate the thermometer but it reads 99.5 and has most of the incubation (would occasionally rise or dip). That said, should I check on the ones that haven't internally pipped yet since it's been a couple days?
I'm not sure if duck eggs are different, but it's not bad to incubate chicken eggs upright. That's actually what manyincubators are designed to do -- you put in the eggs upright, with the fat side up, and the incubator rocks them back and forth.
It's ok. If none have quit and they've made it this far I think they'll do ok. It's just generally a better idea to incubate them in their sides. Sounds ok, Idk why they're early. What breeds again? Your thermometer probably isn't off much, if at all, so I would think it's ok. It's just a good idea to re-check. I would candle all of them. Humidity won't drop bad enough to harm them.
Duck eggs are different. They don't tolerate the upright position well. Most gamebirds don't do well upright either.
That's interesting. I've never incubated anything other than chicken eggs.
