Ok, lets see , where am I? I have had 5 black bibbed babies about 3 weeks now. One grey I think. Next group I got a white!
Mainly , because I lost my white drake and only have a 3 year old female.Father was a Snowy, so interesting.... I also have a black with 2 brown stripes on his head....both of these two tried to drown themselves! I found one in the waterer with the other babies around it with it's head sticking out hardly breathing ( a cut out milk carton) and I put him in the warm water , until he revived like in "Storeys Guide to ducks", then blow dried him and put him in brooder and he is fine now! The white one also got in a waterer and I did the same thing, AND jumped out of brooder in garage and got lost! I finally found her and plugged the hole with a larger wall.
I tried to let some of them brood, but the blacks had too many ducks , 4 females and 2 trying to set and it just got confusing. I took the last of the eggs and some of pastel I think, eggs, 6 and put them in the incubator a couple days ago , as I had to move the ducks out of pens for some babies. I still have some mallard/snowy , see if they hatch. The other group disrupted and threw eggs out, at different stages and some not fertile... basically not sure the girls know what they are doing yet... and some are in trios . I may need to separate them more... with just the female, not sure , I had mini-overberg set eggs and hatch 2 years ago,,,, but not these yet. Will be interesting , as I washed my eggs , but the semi incubated by ducks ones were not washed.... hatch rate is about 25-30% of fertile eggs. And my drakes weren't fertile until they were over 1 year.
On an interesting note. I have someone laying almost a textured ribbing on their eggs...odd calcium laying down. I heard that orginally the shells were too hard to hatch and I am curious as to if this is why... I marked one I have left to see if it hatches.
I too lose many right at the end, but was using still air hovabators and hand turning 3x. I got a Genesis in April and have a staggered group of eggs in it and move them to still air the last couple days. I just got highest % of hatch in the last group...so it is more stable I guess, though it's hard to keep humidity in it stable. It won't run over 65% it says, so for hatching I move to still air and go with 75% roughly...
Now my eggs draw down a lot, I was thinking too much with some... book says if you wash eggs to go up in humidity 10% , I try to keep them around 45-50% until hatch...
I guess it just makes sense that the stronger ones that make it are better all around for breeding.... and I have had a much better hatch with my blacks and they lay 'forever!'. I moved 3 groups around a week ago and took their eggs away, and today the blacks are starting to lay again., (at least one is )
I need to build more pens...So I have 4/1 adults and now 6 black babies ....(some I think may be showing some brown/chocolate), 5 are bibbed like the drake, but he is line bred to 3 daughters, so that may be why.