Very eggciting!

[DoctorSpoon]

I have a dozen duck eggs in an incubator and they just started to pip:

I've never played mum before. The hens I used to keep were such good broodies I never needed to, but my new ducks are young and very mad.

Last night I thought I'd have a little peek with the egg candling lamp to see what was going on inside and could see it had its beak in the air sack at the end of the egg. I then nearly dropped the egg when it started calling 'peep, peep' quite loudly and hastily put it back with the others! My kids were nearly late for school because they were sat by the incubator listening to them calling this morning.

I can see I'm going to get no work at all done today
Nicola

 

[Cobweb]

Congratulations, it's lovely when you have an incubator full of little fuzzies and the kids are going to love them!

On a side note... fully grown male ducks tend to have a habit of trying to mate anything that moves so watch your feet

 

[DoctorSpoon]

On a side note... fully grown male ducks tend to have a habit of trying to mate anything that moves so watch your feet

The eggs are from my own ducks - I bought six indian runner ducklings last year and they turned out to be four male and two female I've been surprised that the females haven't been ... errr ... over-harassed, shall we say! The only problem has actually been with one of the males being bullied by the others. Anyway, I want them for eggs so the plan is to end up with maybe half a dozen ducks and just one drake.

 

[pentrekeeper]

Your going to have so much fun raising them.
A few years ago a friend brought me 9 tiny mallard chicks, you coud easily get four in the palm of your hand, he said the mother had left them after calling them down from the nest at the top of a fir tree. So I set about raising them, first two weeks in a dog kennel inder a light, letting them out occasionally. As they grew I even bought them a large paddling pool and occasionally collected trailing weed from the nearby river cut it up and threw it in the pond they went mad for it.
Anyway to cut a long enjoyable story short they were divided on how to learn to fly, half of them decided that you stand on your tip toes and flap like crazy until you take off, and the other half decided that you run as fast as you can flapping your wings until you take off.
After several weeks of this they all eventually learnt to fly.
It was at this point, having to collect them from neighbours gardens, that I decided to let them free and bundled them into the boot of the car and took them to a mere where there are loads of ducks that the public come and feed. As soon as I opened the boot they jumped out and ran to the water.
For the next couple of months I went there in the evenings with small bag of corn to make sure they got some food, and my nine ducks stayed in a little group and would recognise me and fly down and land around my feet, now thats impressive to see ducks flying high in the sky and as soon as they see you make a b-line straight down to say hello.
They sucessfully integrated into their new surroundings and my job was done but what a lot of fun I had rairing them.
Enjoy.

 

[Gwhtbushcraft]

I am glad you arête having success with your incubating. I am putting in my third batch of eggs this week. Until know I have been using an r-com mini incubator unfortunately the humidity was to high so the three didn’t hatch. The last lot only one was fertile but was looking good until tree days before the hatch when I returned home from school to find the incubator not working. I have been lent an octagon 20 egg incubator and I am hoping for more luck this time. The eggs I am hatching are crested mini Appleyards and I am looking forward to getting the incubator laden up. Third time lucky!
George

 

[JonnyP]

Nice one doc... We keep ducks here and had a mrs muscovey sitting on 16 eggs for 2 weeks but then the mother of the older chicks we have, flew off and so the broody mum to be abandoned the eggs to care for the older chicks. Then the chicks mum decided to come back after a couple of weeks, but she was ignored by everyone except the randy old male we have. Its all going on in duck land, I can tell you...Fox got one of the alesburys a while ago so they got relocated. They are all free ranging. The pecking order amongst them all is weird. The biggest ducks (the alesburys) are the lowest and even get chased away by some of the smaller chickens.
They are all fun to be with and I love hand feeding them, and we get nice fresh eggs..

 

[DoctorSpoon]

Getting the humidity just right is the hardest part. The first few out had a tough time because it was too dry, but I blocked off a couple of air vents in the top and put a wet towel in and the others hatched fine. I now have seven little ducklings peep peeping in a crate under a lamp.
Just hatched:

Fluffy and deeply cute:

 

[Tengu]

Now they will be imprinted upon you and keep you very busy

 

[British Red]

Awwww

Bleeding rats got into my mallard nest

They won't be doing it again mind

I'll lay in some Hoi sin sauce for Robin

Red