To incubator or not

[West coast Ali]

We had two ducks- 1 black swede, 1 black swede runner cross sitting on eggs last year. they were sharing a nest and as you can imagine things went a bit sideways- we had seperated them but we ended up finding several dead, freshley hatched ducklings. the runner cross was the best with the eggs so we seperated her and she successfully hatched one little one. We found one egg in distress and were successful in assisting it’s hatch. We were planning on incubating this year as she lost a lot of weight last year for a very unsuccessful hatch – however she had other plans, she managed to get herself a clutch before we realized it- We have 4 laying ducks and she stole some eggs and hid them. I moved her nest with the eggs in them when I found them and put it in a sectioned off part of our barn. My incubator had not arrived so I thought if she followed the nest then she was serious. Well she did and she has been dedicated to the nest. Now my incubator has arrived and I am considering taking half the eggs and putting them in the incubator. What do you think? She has been sitting on them about 10 days.

 

[Percheron chick]

Candle the eggs and if they appear to be at different stages you could separate them. Give her the more advanced ones. What I typically do is let her have all the eggs but have the incubator and brooder ready to go as it gets close. I usually have to finish up a few eggs (3-4 days). Sometimes I have been able to give them back to the parents while other times it was a disaster.