Hatching Eggs - Journal

[Miss Lydia]

What an adorable little one!! Congrats Pickles and You @Beanfox

 

[Beanfox]

What an adorable little one!! Congrats Pickles and You @Beanfox

Thankyou!! So proud of her!
I stuck a camera in there this morning before work and from what I can tell, a second one has hatched! Excited to go home to see if there’s any more hiding. She had a total of 7 eggs make it to hatch

 

[KathiQuacks]

Update on Pickles eggs. She hatched one today! Hoping some more will be here tomorrow. 2 others that I could see had broken shells! But Pickle has been extra sassy the last day or two, so it’s hard to get a look lolView attachment 3941816

Sweet gorgeous baby
How is Pickles and her babies now?

And how is your first baby Moo doing?

 

[Beanfox]

Sweet gorgeous baby
How is Pickles and her babies now?

And how is your first baby Moo doing?

So far she and the babies are doing good! Just noticed a new one a few minutes ago. So we’re at 5/7 now!

Moo unfortunately passed a few days after hatching. Still trying to accept it. The blue baby is named after her, Blue Moo (Blue for short). They look so similar. Moo definitely gave us a sweet gift

 

[Muscovy Duck Chronicles]

So a friend of mine on a farm wanted me to help hatch muscovy eggs since I have been documenting the group by my apartment and have learned a metric ton about them. He was given 5 eggs all laid by the same hen (supposedly anyway) on another free range farm. The starting weights were 92G, 84G, 86G, 86G, and 86G. The 92 stands out. What does this mean? Can a newly laid muscovy egg be that heavy? The farm its from does allow different animals to mingle.

Also a few other questions if anyone knows:

1. The incubator my friend is working with does not achieve pinpoint 99.5 temp. One side is 100.5 and the other is 98.5. Is this range okay? If he should “miss 99.5”, should he aim to miss high (hot) or low (colder)? He can up the temp to the range of 99.5 to 101.0 to miss high for example.

2. Humidity. I plan to help him track via weight, right now it’s 47-53% throughout the course of the last 2 days it’s been on. One day without eggs. (On day 2 now with eggs). Anyone have any opinions on a good first week target for this?

3. If the egg weights suggest some need more humidity AND some need less, Does anyone know of any tips and tricks to tackle that? They must stay in the same incubator.

Thanks

 

[Miss Lydia]

Here is info on hatching Muscovy ducklings i hope this answers your questions
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...muscovy-eggs.63532/?page=3#ams-comment-526843

 

[Muscovy Duck Chronicles]

Here is info on hatching Muscovy ducklings i hope this answers your questions
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...muscovy-eggs.63532/?page=3#ams-comment-526843

Ive read that up and down a couple times. It’s just in practice things can never be as easy as following directions due to equipment and conditions. The incubator not holding 99.5 in all four quadrants inside the incubator being one. I’m sure it’s close enough so I’m not too worried but I’d like to optimize.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I let my Muscovy be my incubators they do a great job. lol

 

[Beanfox]

Update:

Still at 5 babies. Well… technically 6.

Pickle rejected the last 2 eggs (I think)… she didn’t care when I reached into her nest, whereas before she would hiss and charge if we even stuck our heads in the house. They had holes in the shell yesterday. But when I came out this morning to check on everyone, she completely burried them and they were cold. The shells were flattened too. One was almost all the way hatched but did not make it. The second one I thought had passed, but while I was carrying it it started to move its bill. So I quickly brought it in and got the incubator set up to warm it up. It’s attached to the egg, there’s some yolk left still.

But it’s chirping away in the incubator right now.

I’m wondering if Pickle is just tired. The first baby hatched 4 days ago and they’re all exploring the house now. She seemed very antsy to get out yesterday. She does have food and water in the house but I know it’s not the same as foraging with her siblings and swimming. I suppose there’s always a chance she thought something was wrong with them. Physically they look fine. But never know

 

[Miss Lydia]

They just feel the need to get up and take care of the ones that hatched already especially after 4 days. You might want to put the little one on a soft cloth inside a cup or small bowl feet down so it doesn't drag the yolk around and rupture it.