Our first attempt at incubating duck eggs was a disappointing bust, but the girls have started laying confirmed fertile eggs, so we’re ready to try again. No sense letting that fancy incubator sit idle.
This time, we set a total of 11 eggs. Some were old, possibly as old as two weeks. One was added the day after the original group was set, since Piper laid a cute olive egg – we had to set it. Two days after the initial set, we added two more freshly-laid eggs. When we candled them tonight, all looked good except for two: one was a clear (infertile) and one looked like it had started development and stopped (blood ring). That leaves nine still in the incubator, including Piper’s small egg.
Speaking of Piper, the naughty girl has apparently decided she doesn’t like us taking her eggs from the coop and has stopped laying there. Continue reading “Duck Egg Incubation – Take 2”
Incubated eggs: batch #3 hatching is complete, with just one late hatcher left in the incubator. The chick in the photo was an unassisted hatch, but we noticed that one leg splayed out a bit, so we taped his/her legs together with a piece of bandage to help the leg straighten out. The late hatcher clearly needed some assistance, but we wanted to provide every opportunity for the chick to emerge on his or her own. When we did intervene, we began by partly opening the egg (last night) to see if s/he could kick out; when we checked this morning, s/he was still in the same position in the partial shell. 
One of the Muscovy ducks has been behaving a bit strangely. We saw her circling the duck coop the other day, as if she were looking for a way in (we have to keep the door shut after they come out in the morning or the chickens scratch the straw out). We opened the door and she rushed in, so we assumed that she needed to lay an egg.