My ducklings are all grown up and ready to have their own babies.
Exciting times have arrived at my house. Last spring we added our very first male duck, Felix, and two more females to our flock in the hopes of getting fertilized duck eggs. Felix is now nine months old. I started seeing Felix getting frisky with his girls and decided it was time to buy an incubator and start checking for fertilized duck eggs.
I got a great deal on ebay on a 96 egg incubator.
Unpacking and assembling the incubator was intimidating. The idea of trying to help new life grow and thrive is also very intimidating. I really had no idea what I was doing once I got the incubator. How do you tell if an egg is fertilized? How to you incubate the eggs? Basically, ever step of this is new and I'm learning as I go.
Putting the incubator together was hard. The instruction booklet only told me how to use the thing. I had to look up people putting it together on youtube and none of the videos were in English. I finally figured it out by watching people closely to see where things went.
Starting off with 23 eggs
I had 23 eggs set aside that I had no idea if they were fertile or not. I got an egg candling flashlight and started shining light through each egg. Some very completely clear inside and some had a yellow mass floating in it. It took a while to figure that the clear ones weren't fertile and the ones with the yellow mass were. The first batch of eggs I put every single one in the incubator not knowing how to tell.
I put all 23 eggs, no matter what they looked like in the incubator and waited four days. On the fourth day I candled each one and happily most of them were showing signs of life. After four days I could see red veins starting to form in the top of the egg near the air sac. I'm pretty sure Sammy, my Pekin, isn't getting mated by Felix. She's bigger than him and her eggs are really big so I can easily shine a light and see none are fertile. I think the rest of the girls are getting mated and so far only Sammy's are not fertile.
Day #4 pictures
Day #8 Candling and Seeing Movement
I took video on this day and no pictures. I can't get the video downloaded at the moment to share here. Seeing developing baby ducks moving inside the egg is the coolest thing ever! I get to see my baby ducks growing day by day inside their eggs. On day #8 I read their eyelids, knees, and spine are just forming.
Day #12 and things are going well
You can see that dark mass inside the egg which is the forming duckling. So far I don't see any eggs that have died but that can still happen. I see movement in 17 of my first eggs. I realized a number of the first 23 weren't fertile so I removed them and am down to 17.
I have around 36 eggs in the incubator at the moment and have been adding them every few days when I have at least eight eggs to make a nice group of ducklings to hatch together. It takes around 28 days to hatch a duck egg so I still have a little ways to go before the babies arrive.
I've already created a listing for ducklings for sale to take pre-orders because a lot of people prefer newly hatched ducklings. I plan on keeping a few but most will go up for sale. Before I was selling duck eggs for eating and found it a nice side business. It'll be interesting if I can do well selling ducklings.
With the new steemit update, I literally could not figure out how to find the people I follow like you, so sorry I missed this update.
Are all your laying ducks American Pekings? I thought you had white ones to? If so, what type are they? I'm looking into raising ducks too :)
I finally tried duck eggs for the first time. You were right! They are wonderful! Best eggs ever to make pouched eggs!
That's okay! Glad to see you. Glad you tried duck eggs! I haven't poached any but I do love a good greasy fried egg sandwich. I love baking with them the most. I can tell a difference with making cakes and they are so moist!
I have one Pekin. She's a big duck. My black Swedish male is too short to get on her so no babies lol. I have four Black Swedish and one Khaki Campbell. If I ever buy ducks again I don't think I'd get Pekins again. They are beautiful but they are big birds. I feel my poor Sammy has a hard time keeping up with the smaller ducks and she gets tired out faster. We live on mountainous terrain so that makes it harder on her. I've read as they get older their legs can give out on them so as long as I live in the mountains I think I'll avoid that breed in the future. Her good qualities is she's super friendly and chill. No health issues after almost 2 years and she lays the biggest eggs.
My Khaki Campbell Reese seems to need a different diet than the other ducks. I constantly have to give her more brewers yeast, oyster shell, and other food additives especially in the winter. She was laying a lot of soft eggs and sometimes just had her legs give out on her until I special dieter her. Khaki Campbells are suppose to be super egg layers too so if you had more than one of them with the same diet it would a good breed. It's not always easy tweeking the diet for one.I have to catch Reese and make sure she eats what she needs to and she's fast!
The Black Swedish are really great and my favorite breed. Their eggs are smaller like a chickens in the winter but larger in the warm months. No problems with them. I just give them layer feed with no additives and they do fine. An egg a day from each girl. They are great foragers and my feed costs go down in the warmer months with them. They aren't skittish like my Khaki Campbell which are known for being skittish. They are cold hardy too so no need to heat their house in our climate.
So yeah....long response lol. I could talk about ducks all day! I hope you get some. They are just so cute and fun to have.
Thank you VERY much for your long response lol!! We travel a lot (yes we are headed to Australia from Canada, and then hopping on a cruise :) sooo, the girl that looks after our house and used to look after my cat (cat died recently) she is a total animal person and I told her that I would buy her all if she wanted to raise ducks :) Thank you again for your posts! I would have never have known nor tried duck eggs if it wasn't for you ! Now I"m hooked!
Be careful traveling. Here in the US the Coronavirus has everybody on lock down in their homes. A local couple here were quarantined for a month on a cruise ship because someone had it so their trip was ruined.
I'll be making lots of duck posts soon. I've got baby ducks hatching tonight and I'm going to be in duckling euphoria for a while. Depending on how many I get I'll be selling some of them. I hope you get some ducks. I'd time it so that you get them when you won't be traveling so you can handle them a lot as babies. Makes all the difference. My first 3 I handled a lot and they will chill with me and eat from my hand. The other 3 I got sick and couldn't be with them the first several weeks and they are more skittish of more. Won't come too close which is sad.
My dear friend!
So happy to see you posting again!
BLESSINGS!
😄😇😉
