First time hatching using a incubator (Duck eggs) (2024)

Last year I stuck some chicken eggs under some broody wyandottens and they did all the work for me lol but I sold most of my chickens early spring since they where getting on in age and the ones hatched last year are not of the broody type. Now I feel like mixing in some ducks but without a broody bird I need to do the work myself.

So I'm currently on day 4, eggs where placed in May 30th in the Morning around 6am. I had gotten them in the mail the day before around 1pm and let them rest, pointy end down in eggcart, until the next morning.

I bought 8 runner duck eggs (I really wanted silver welsh harlequin but none where being sold that I could find here in Germany y-y) I forgot to ask how old the eggs where and i'm hoping its not the same eggs he was offering when he first put up the ad as that would make the oldest 14 days old by the time I put them in =^=' if they all fail I will definitely ask the next seller how old the eggs are. They where packed pretty good though so hopeful they would know not to sell eggs that are too old if they take such good care to send them undamaged.

I am using a Janoel 12 incubator

at first I had the eggs incubating in my cellar to keep away from my toddler and doggies but it was too cold down there and I noticed this morning the incubater couldnt keep the temp anymore so I moved it up to my kitchen. My first choice of placement was the bedroom but the fan is a little loud, not enough to bother me but enough to bother my husband lol.

I also didn't have a extra thermostat the first two days so I was running my incubater at 37.5 C and then the small thermostat I bought to messure humidity came in so I put it in and checked it when it was time to turn the eggs again and it told me the temp was 36.5! and the humidity was 65%! I brought up the temp to 38 on the incubater and the small thermostat says 37-37.2 so i'm hoping it should avarage out around the middle. After bringing it up to the kitchen my husband did give me the idea to stick our meat thermometer through the air hole to egg level as another way to check and it did give me a reading of 37.5! The almost unreadable manual did say to put 100ml at the start and this was definitely not good advice, it makes the humidity too high at the start, after moving it to my kitchen it was even readin 73%! I dumped all the water out and a few hours later its now at 40%. If it goes down 35% i'll add 5ml water and see how that changes thing.

So I'm hoping I haven't already messed things up with too low temps the first few days. I plan to candle the first time on day 7! Wish me luck! I'll update on day 7 if the eggs are alive or not.

Good luck! I have call ducks in my incubator (going into day 18). They are so interesting to see how they grow.
that you have a good set and everyone comes along.

I find setting the humidity and temperature the most stressful. I have mine set around 37.5C and humidity at around 43%.

So I candled a little early, morning of day 6 and shipping must have been rough. Two eggs for sure where empty so I took them out and cracked them open and they where scrambled inside.

A 3rd might be the same but I wasn't sure if I saw somthing small in there so i'm going to wait but it might be just a very early quiter since no veins yet.

A 4th one has hairline cracks but is developing so good T_T I poured some beeswax over the area and hope for the best but the cracks are almost over the spot its developing at...

Still that leaves 4 good ones but they still got to make it to hatch.
On the plus side now that its down to 6 in the incubator I can add in the auto turner since the max it can hold was 6 and I had 8 so I've been hand turning which I wont need to do anymore lol