Has anyone ever incubated eggs?

[Maddy McCall]

I have a couple of questions.

[ceusi]

1. my husband's been looking into this n/t

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. You mean, by sitting on them? Or by heat lamps/machines/etc.?

We used to do the heat lamps/etc. method on the farm.

I've never incubated by sitting, though.

[Maddy McCall]

3. LOL! With an icubator.

The box with the heat.

I was wondering if I am supposed to was the eggs before I place them in the incubator.

[Rabrrrrrr]

4. Hmmm....I don't remember if we washed them or not

I have a feeling that we didn't, but then we incubated them in the barn anyway.... so who knows.

I can't imagine it would make any difference whether they are washed.

[Bjornsdotter]

5. Wash?

My Dad never did...but he had to turn the eggs every so often.

What are you trying to hatch?

Cheers,
Kim :toast:

[Maddy McCall]

7. Indian Runner Ducks

Aren't they cute?



Got some quail eggs on the way, too.

[Lisa]

13. runners are great!

I have six of them (actually they're boarding at a friend's farm now) -- I got them as day-old ducklings though, and didn't hatch them out.

By the way, are you incubating the quails and the ducks simultaneously, in the same machine?

[Maddy McCall]

16. No, I have two separate incubators.

I have lots of acreage here at my home. Very rural. Can I allow the runners to free-range or will I need to confine them? When they become adults, I mean.

[Lisa]

21. my friend reports that they tend to wander ...

She says that they would automatically rush off to the nearest body of water to bathe -- unfortunately, it was the farm's swimming hole and the humans wanted to use it too! She ended up building the ducks an enclosure. One thing is, they all tend to rush around in a tight little flock, rather than going their separate ways, so it's easier to keep track of them. She lets them out sometimes during the day, to catch bugs. And they do go back there in the evening, when they get hungry, so she doesn't have to chase after them and round them up.

I gave her a Khaki Campbell last year, an adult male who promptly took off for the farm next door (to visit the female Pekins). I haven't heard whether the runners have had any inclination to do this, although they must be getting near sexual maturity.

p.s. there are 4 Black runners and 2 Chocolates in my batch. My friend's kids totally adore them and have them trained to come for treats.

[Bjornsdotter]

23. Cute!

We want pictures when they hatch.

We did bobwhite quail eggs...they were a lot of fun, great personalities.

Cheers,
Kim :toast:

[Eureka]

6. We don't

well, normally we don't. Sometimes if they are really filthy (eg, if it has been raining) we might, but generally not.

We get a pretty good hatch rate, but to be honest I don't keep good enough records to show if washing makes that much of a difference.

The pores in the shell itself will let gases through (thats how they breath while in the shell) so I wouldn't soak them, but a quick rinse under the tap doesn't seem to cause too much trouble.)

[Maddy McCall]

8. The eggs arrived really clean, so I won't wash them.

Thanks for your advice. :-)

[Lisa]

10. unless the eggs are rather dirty ...

... most of the advice I've received is to leave them au natural. Apparently there's a thin surface coating that helps exclude bacteria, and rubbing it could actually introduce contamination into the egg.

p.s. adding to what Eureka said -- soaking, or using soap or other solvents that could enter the egg or block those breathing pores -- try to avoid. The manual that came with my incubator suggested dabbing the egg dry with tissues, and picking at adhered dirt rather than scrubbing hard.

I have a Brower incubator with an automatic turner (a real life-saver, for me as well as for the chicks!) -- it's supposed to hold 48 eggs but I think that's only for bantam sizes, since it's pretty full with 30 jumbo-sized ones.

I've only incubated chicks so far, jchild (21 days as opposed to 28 for ducks) -- I've heard that spraying the eggs with warm water in the last week or so of incubation can prevent them from drying out too much. I tried this with the smaller chicken eggs and it's probably the reason the littlest chicks survived (the tinier the egg, the more surface area it has relative to the volume, and the more prone it is to losing too much moisture).

[Maddy McCall]

14. Thanks for this wonderful advice!

I appreciate it! :-)

[Lisa]

22. oh, here's what happened with my most recent attempt ...

I've done 3 clutches so far. The first two were better than 60% success (not bad considering that the eggs were shipped from 3 time zones away). It probably would have been higher if I had taken the shipper's advice and let the eggs sit for 12-24 hours after arriving, to "settle" before I put them into the incubator.

The most recent hatch (last weekend) resulted in only one chick, but that appears to be due to problems with the eggs themselves and not a function of the incubator failing. (I "autopsied" the eggs that didn't make it, and they were almost all infertile from the start ... only 2 showed signs of any development and they stopped after the 3rd day.) The survivor, "CJ" (a Speckled Sussex), is active and healthy.

I usually prep the incubator starting 3 days before the eggs show up. That way there's enough time for the temperature to reach equilibrium (doing adjustments in the first 2 or 3 days of the incubation can really set back development, because the embryos are rather sensitive).

p.s. thanks for starting this thread! I've been longing to talk about this ever since I hatched my first clutch.

Good luck! Please don't be nervous -- remember that eggs have been around for millions of years (and in fact humans are unlike most other animals in that we don't incubate). If a klutz like me can get a majority hatch rate, I'm sure you'll have no problems!

The light bulb that powers my incubator went out on about day 18 of my second clutch. I didn't notice this until noon (and by that time as many as 8-9 hours might have gone by) -- the eggs were at room temperature. I thought for sure that all was lost, but I was amazed and delighted when the eggs still hatched (only a day late!). I only lost 2 chicks, after all that. So eggs are pretty resilient.

I'm hoping to do runner duck eggs too, as soon as the flock starts producing. Apparently duck eggs need higher RH than chickens (plus the extra week) -- if you have access to a candling lamp (even a slide projector will work), it's pretty easy to sort out the "dud" eggs and tell if the inside of the good ones is moist enough, by looking at the size of the air cell.
http://www.thepoultrysite.com/FeaturedArticle/FAType.asp?AREA=ducks&Display=166


Here are some more handy links:
http://www.metzerfarms.com/hatch.htm
http://www.duckhealth.com/hatcduck.html
http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~becker/HatchingProgram/Candling/
(what the egg should look like if it's developing properly)

[Maddy McCall]

25. I let the eggs settle for 12 hours.

I heated up my incubator today. I have it maintaining 99.5, so I put in the eggs.

Thanks for the advice about the slide projector...yes, I have one of those. I'll check in several days to see if they are fertile.

And thanks for the great links--I've bookmarked all of them.

I got my Indian Runner eggs from a farm in California. The lady who sold them to me was very nice, and they arrived unbroken...plus, she gave me four extra, for a total of ten. I live several time zones away from her, too--am hoping that they didn't get too hot or cold during delivery--were delivered overnight.

What do you feed your Indian Runners? What about starter? and then adult food?

Thanks for your advice!

[Lisa]

26. one thing I've learned ...

Even if things go wrong, you will probably have at least a few hatchlings that make it! (See the note I added above about my unexpectedly-good hatch after several hours without heat.) And your strategy of using separate incubators for the two species is great. I tried chickens and turkeys at the same time once, and what with having to worry about different turning schedules, it drove me up the wall!

If you need to help out a stuck chick -- if it manages to puncture the air cell the chances are pretty good that it'll be okay. I've had to do this a couple of times (e.g. for "Atlas", a Black Australop who was so big that he had a difficult time uncramping his neck enough to pip the shell). Go in through the big end of the egg, to minimize any chance of clipping a blood vessel that hasn't contracted yet.


For their first week I fed the runners some waterfowl pellets (available at most feed stores), adding in some extra niacin and calcium (both come in tablets from the drugstore). I mixed it in the kitchen blender -- 2 cups of pellets, 2 or 3 heaping tablespoons of soy flour for extra protein, 1 crushed niacin tablet, and 2 crushed calcium tablets. The added calcium probably wasn't necessary but it didn't seem to do the babies any harm ...

I kept the mixture in the fridge. A visitor once asked me if the container labelled "Duck" contained actual duck, and I had to explain that no, that wasn't the case, but he'd be welcome to try what was in there!

Last year I looked after 2 abandoned mallard ducklings ... back then I'd added a handful of dried fish to the mixture, but stopped when I found out that the fish had too much salt. One of the wildlife biologists at my workplace had mentioned something about ducks needing insect shells, fish scales, etc. to develop strong flight feathers. But they seemed to be fine even after I cut out the fish. Of course, with domesticated ducks, the flight feathers aren't really as vital.

[Maddy McCall]

28. WOW! What an abundance of info!

I just printed your post so that I can refer to it later. Excellent advice!

[Hotdiggitydog]

9. Fraid not...

Don't think I could sit still long enough.

[BigMcLargehuge]

11. I have, I was a preschool teacher

we did a couple of dozen every year... ask away

[Maddy McCall]

12. Did you have the eggs shipped?

Did you wash them before placing them in the incubator?

How long do you allow the incubator to heat up before placing the eggs inside?

What kind of hatch rate did you have?

[BigMcLargehuge]

15. we had the eggs delivered from a local farm

we let the incubator heat up to at least 80 degrees before putting the eggs inside, with a 60 watt bulb it took about an hour.

Hatch rate varied, one year we had 18 chicks, another year only 10, out of a dozen eggs.

[Maddy McCall]

17. Did you build the incubator?

Thanks for all of this wisdom...I am really nervous! :-)

[BigMcLargehuge]

18. the school had the incubator before I was hired

so I don't know if a parent built it or if it was purchased.

As for washing the eggs from your original questions, no, we never washed them. The shells are porous and we worried that excess moisture would damage the embryos.

[Maddy McCall]

19. Thanks very much!

toast:

[soothsayer]

20. I just keep mine in my ovaries

but they're not fertilized or anything

(and I only have one ovary these days)

[Zomby Woof]

24. an eggsellent reply

[Ellen Forradalom]

27. I incubated one of mine

He's now five. Cute little tyke.