I’m hatching these rescue duck eggs. I found these while on a hike. Mama seemed to have been shot and her body was not far from these eggs. They were buried under some leaves and I almost stepped on them, but luckily my husband stopped on time and we got to bring these babies home safely.
I have absolutely zero idea of what I’m doing and I’m scared I might harm them in any way.
I got an incubator off of amazon and I have done everything that the leaflet with instructions suggested: setting it up, adding water in and wait for 2 hours before adding the eggs in.
I did exactly that and now my eggs are sweaty? ChatCPT is freaking me out by saying eggs should not be “sweaty” and that it encourages bacterial growth and to check for the humidity level. Fact is, the incubator does not allow me to check on the humidity level and it also does not allow me to increase the temperature, it sort does it’s own and I can’t seem to do anything to change it. Temperature is currently set at 27.2°C and it’s slowly increasing by itself.
Please, what am I doing wrong and what can I do to give these eggs the best chances at hatching?
by Due-Strawberry8539
4 Comments
Are you sure they are even fertile? You can check with a light you will see a little bullseye unless they’re further along than that then you would see more structures.
If mom was gone for too long they simply won’t make it. I would just check for life with a flashlight and keep them in the incubator for now. Nature is neither cruel nor kind and you can’t save every living creature. Good on you for trying.
If the eggs were cold when you grabbed them chances are they’re gone. If they’ve started to be incubated, once the temp drops below a certain point the embryos die. If you want to have a go at it, then they’ll need to be turned every 12 hours. Humidity needs to be kept at a specific level and the temp needs to be kept as close to incubation temp as possible. There’s specific temps for different types of eggs. After they’ve been heated for a few days you can do what’s called candling. If you get a dark room with a bright light you should be able to shine the light through the egg to see if theres any growth happening. You see what looks like veins starting in the yolk. Then they should be furtile and growing. If you don’t see the veins or you tap on the eggs and they sound almost hollow then they’ve turn rancid and you should dispose of them with extreme care. They will smell horrific if they break. Good luck. Happy hatching.
Are you able to check the humidity level? Some incubators have that in the settings, if not you can get a humidity sensor and check it.
Yeah you need to candle them to see if they’re even vital.