Egg Collecting, Storage and Record Keeping Some of the smaller teal can be very suspicious of any disturbance and are better left until the clutch is complete. Very small bantam eggs, matched for size and weight, may be an alternative substitute but not always. However, despite this risk, it may be better to leave small duck eggs in the nest rather than exchanging them for dummies. Then, should a predator find the nest, at least some of the eggs may be saved. One method for larger ducks and geese is to take the eggs, as they are laid, and replace them with dummies of near identical size and weight, until the clutch is complete. Geese and swans, where males play a parental role, are frequently more successful. This may influence our decision whether or not to parent rear. It varies from species to species how much involvement drakes, ganders and cobs have in the raising of the family. Males may guard nests some species may even share the incubation. It is particularly obvious in female waterfowl. Going ‘broody’ is a natural phenomenon with nearly all birds that incubate eggs. Sometimes if the first clutch of eggs is taken away, it is possible that the female will lay a repeat clutch in the same season. We may remove eggs because the mother is not a good sitter or is being disturbed by other birds. However, for a number of reasons this is not always practical in captivity. You have your own duckling to spam your social media accounts.In an ideal world, female waterfowl should incubate their own eggs. Like all pregnancies things can and do go wrong. If after day 30-31 they haven’t hatched, put the egg to your ear, can you hear a scratching or movement? If so it may need more time. You want to allow the duckling to be dried off before removing them from the incubator. We have found ducklings that have been helped to hatch do not survive or thrive.ĭucklings can live up to 72hrs in the incubator as they are still using the nutrients from the yoke sac. The sudden change in temperature can cause the egg membrane to shrink and the duckling could become stuck. If the membrane is appearing dry, spritz it with water but do not open the incubator unless absolutely needed. Patience grasshopper.ĭon’t be tempted to try and help them out. It can take 24+hours for a duckling to hatch. Now like all babies some hatch quickly and others take their time. Increase the humidity to 75-85% for the last 5 days, I have found this helps the ducklings emerge from the eggs. This allows the ducklings to work out which way is up. Use the chart below to check the progress of your eggs, just don’t let them cool.ĭay 23: turn off the rotator/ rocker and stop rotating the eggs. If you don’t see veins you can put them back and check again in a few days time. Don’t freak out if the humidity shoots up quickly, give it 30mins and should settle.ĭay 7-10 check your eggs by turning all lights off and using a torch shine into the egg. You will need to maintain the humidity at 65% for the next 23 days, when the humidity drops add a little water to the incubator or spritz the eggs. If your incubator requires manual turning mark your eggs with a top and a bottom eg (X&O), you will need to rotate your eggs a ¼ turn 4 times a day for the next 23 days. If your incubator has an automatic rotator or rocker you can set and forget. Not sitting up or down like they would in the store. Put your eggs in your incubator on their side. Run your incubator for at least a day to make sure it remains stable and is fault free. Set humidity to 65% (for the first 23 days, this will increase later) Set your incubator to 37-38 Degrees Celsius. If you have a broody– pop them under her, she will do the rest. Small torch or light on your phone to candle (check the development) the eggs as you go. Incubator or Broody hen/ goose/ turkey… your clucky cousin doesn’t count. That being said let’s get QUACKING and hatch those eggs! When those fluffy little critters hatch it’s impossible not to fall in love. EGGciting stuff when you open that little package knowing that you are about to hatch your own duck eggs… BUT… Beware if you dare to take this step of buying fertilised eggs, you will be abDUCKed by the wonder of watching the ducklings develop and grow.
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