Staggered hatch: **UPDATE** All finished. Final results on page 5

[critterranch]

when are they do? staggered?

 

[Gypsy07]

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Hey Critter! Is your hatch finished yet or are you still waiting for some more? Sounds like you got a pretty good result anyway, congratulations.

So you didn't have any shrink wrapping problems either? Cool. I wonder if we've just been really lucky with that. The way some people go on about it on here, you'd think that even cracking the bator door for half a second would be a disaster. But I had my bator door wide open for up to 20 seconds at a time when eggs were in the middle of pipping and zipping and I had NO problems at all. I know loads of people on here say 65% humidity TOPS for lockdown, but I wonder if 80% is the way to go. It worked great for me here and I don't see what harm it could do anyway. I'm going to stick with really high humidity for my lockdowns from now on I think.

Please post some pics of your chicks and ducklings here, I'd love to see them.

 

[Gypsy07]

Update: My six eggs that were on day 3 when I put my first eggs into lockdown are now down to four and they're on day 16. I tossed one on day 12 (blood ring) and another on day 14 (early quitter). The bator was looking awfully empty with just five eggs in it after I chucked that first one, and so I set another ten eggs. Thought I might as well extend the experiment a bit more, as I'm finding it really fascinating so far. The odds are stacked against these ones even more cause as well as having to cope with the high humidity I'll soon need for locking down the first four, my bator is by now littered with eggshell fragments, chick dander, chick poo and dried hatching goop, so it's pretty unsanitary in there. Added to that, some of the latest eggs had been stored for almost two weeks prior to setting.

My results so far are as follows:

Original 8 eggs: 6 developed, 6 made it to lockdown, 5 hatched perfectly, 1 dead in shell (died approx day 18)

Next 6 eggs: 1 bloodring, 5 developed, 1 early quitter (died approx day 8), lockdown in two days...

Next 10 eggs: Due for candling on day 6, just before I lock down the other 4...


I'm not going to set any more. If this 'experiment' works out well I could have 15+ chicks in two weeks time.

Yikes! What WAS I thinking!?!

 

[critterranch]

i kept my humdity right up there a couple times as the just got out of shell it spike right up to 100. i had to open bator to lower it to 80-85. this morning i did have a tiny bit of shrink wrapping on one duck but just put a few warm drops of water around edge of membrane and the duckling was out in secs. and i do mean secs. i have updates and pics in the duck forum. they are still going really dragged out. yes and i love the fact a did all this in my little gaint still air that almost everyone says is junk. lol

 

[Gypsy07]

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Savage, what/how many are you hatching and how far along are you? Please join in wth more info!

 

[stampntam]

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What type of chicks are they?

 

[Gypsy07]

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They are all Marsh Daisys. I only have a few adult birds at the moment and they're not perfect examples but I decided they're good enough to breed from and see how the chicks turn out. I'm hoping to track down some more adult birds this year and get a half decent flock going. If the chicks don't turn out as nice as I'm hoping for I'm going to keep them but not for breeding.

 

[critterranch]

how are yours doing?


i think they are almost done but they are stll going
update

lockdown dates
jan 31 9 eggs duck into lockdown 6 hatched 3 never piped
feb 1 3 eggs duck 3 hatched
feb2 2 eggs duck and 10 EE eggs 2 duck hatched - 7 EE hatched-3-EE haven't pip yet
feb 3 3 eggs duck 3 hatched
feb 4 3 eggs cuckoo maran no pips yet

 

[Highlander]

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They are all Marsh Daisys. I only have a few adult birds at the moment and they're not perfect examples but I decided they're good enough to breed from and see how the chicks turn out. I'm hoping to track down some more adult birds this year and get a half decent flock going. If the chicks don't turn out as nice as I'm hoping for I'm going to keep them but not for breeding.

Are they an autosexing breed? There is a big difference in colour between those pale ones and that dark chipmunk one. Cuties though!

 

[Gypsy07]

Quote:
They are all Marsh Daisys. I only have a few adult birds at the moment and they're not perfect examples but I decided they're good enough to breed from and see how the chicks turn out. I'm hoping to track down some more adult birds this year and get a half decent flock going. If the chicks don't turn out as nice as I'm hoping for I'm going to keep them but not for breeding.

Are they an autosexing breed? There is a big difference in colour between those pale ones and that dark chipmunk one. Cuties though!

I wish! That would make thing much easier wouldn't it? They aren't autosexing, though they do look like they should be. The way I've had it explained to me, there used to be three main distinct colours, Brown, Buff and Wheaten. When the breed got to the point of nearly dying out fifty or so years ago, the people who found the last few birds ended up having to breed the different colours together in order to keep the breed going. So now their colour genes are all mixed up and they don't breed true. You could breed two of one colour whose parents and grandparents were that same colour, and get chicks of any colour popping out. It's something that a recently set up UK breeder's group is hoping to sort out but getting them to breed true will probably take years and years, and I actually quite like the 'lucky dip' aspect of them.

I also think that fluff colour doesn't indicate adult colour, as my two adult cockerels were both pure yellow as chicks and turned out two different colours as adults. I've asked that of a couple of people who keep them (on a different forum) but didn't get any responses. Oh well. I'll find out soon enough. I've ID tagged them all and I'm keeping notes on each chick.

That chipmunk one is my favourite! Got my fingers crossed s/he's a girl...