Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Update on duckling hatches

Well, the duckling hatches aren't going so well. Evidently duck eggs need a high amount of humidity. The ducks have stuck pretty badly inside their shell and once they are detached from their shells they have goop all stuck to them. Two of the ones that hatched have died, but four look to be quite vigorous. There are a few more eggs in the incubator, but I do not have high hopes for them. I think they've died. A sweet little boy I know is fascinated with all the happenings in the incubator and likes to twist the temperature gague, so I think the eggs have gotten too cold and too hot at times. Not sure, but I think the chicken eggs have demised as well.

So far, I've gotten 6 of 40 eggs to hatch. Given that the nest of eggs was sitting outside for a long time before they went into my homemade and therefore inferior incubator, temperature variations and the lack of control on the humidity, I would say it is still a success.

I cancelled all of my sales of the ducks and am at least keeping the four that hatched. Too bad, because there were quite a few people out there that wanted them. I had a fella that was going to drive up from Eugene to get them. Well, maybe I can now have a larger breeding stock.

I just invested more money in a hygrometer. It was only $15 on Amazon. Its just a little weather station. It seems stupid to me that these aren't included with the incubator.

I hope to post some photos of the adorable ducks soon.

Interesting duck hatching advice

4 comments:

Laura said...

I wonder why our ducks have hatched outside when it's so dry here. Our problems have been drownings and crows after they hatch. But we got one batch of 14 to live.

We eat the eggs. So much more nutrition than chicken eggs. We'll hatch out some later when it gets warmer.

It's all live and learn eh?

Vegetable Garden Cook said...

It's possible you have a breed or the individual ducks make good mommies and lay on their eggs appropriately. Mine did not. She had such a big nest in her little nest area and was not interested in sitting on it. I don't know how many eggs she would have accumulated in there!

Another duckling hatched, and another chicken. Yay! But then another dukling died. I think he was trampled when he wedged himself in between the food bowl and the wall of the brooder. Too bad.

Anonymous said...

Hi Amy Dear~~ I had to get flea meds for my cats yesterday. The store had chicks. They were so cute and made me think of you. Is it cheaper to buy the eggs than the already hatched chicks? I look forward to the photos. They are such cute little things.

Vegetable Garden Cook said...

Not that much cheaper. But right now I'm hatching eggs from my own flocks, so the eggs are free except for the cost of the feed that goes into the eggs.

The turkeys that I am getting are going to be about $5/egg. I know, crazy! But the prices of the babies are twice as expensive. The probably won't all hatch though.