I am so excited, this is my our first duck hatch ever and there are seven cute little yellow things with beaks peeking out of the hatching tray this afternoon!

They take up so much room not much room left in there now but I don;t want to mess up the hatch by taking them out yet...I put that nonslip grip stuff down inthe bottom of the tray so hope that helps their legs to stay good...

Wow what a nail biter though...can't believe how long ducks take to get out of the shell, great big holes, but they rest for so darn long....

Thanks to abpride for duck incubating tips and HR for her patience advice, I was ready to chuck them out yesterday!!

Congratts can't wait to see pictures!!

Thats great! I bet they are adorable

Oh please share all the advice you can about hatching ducklings....please please.

chickeesmom wrote:Oh please share all the advice you can about hatching ducklings....please please.

All I know I learned from Renee.. and Jayme...
Renee believes in taking them out 3 X a day, cooling for 10 minutes and then spritzing them with room temp water and turning them. The first 3 days she does nothing but turn and the last 3 of course no turning or cooling just spritzing into the incubator..
A little less cooling in the last week I think she said.
Maybe she can add if I forgot anything here...Renee?


I did this mostly except realized i am horribly absent minded so would rush off to do something in the ten minutes, only to come racing back, one time I left them all out for half an hour! Yikes...
So now I set a timer for ten minutes...

And right now I can't do any turning or cooling of the other 3 rack of eggs because of the hatch going on so?

Congrats! So were they late to hatch or just took longer to come out??? I have my first ducklings ever set to hatch the first week of May so just wondering what you found frustrating so I'll be ready

Thanks, that's great information. Another question, how long in the incubator till they hatch?

SerJay wrote:Congrats! So were they late to hatch or just took longer to come out??? I have my first ducklings ever set to hatch the first week of May so just wondering what you found frustrating so I'll be ready

Both! they were late to hatch, Day 28 was Sunday, and then they took forever to get out even after they had made large cracks..
of course the lateness may be due to my leaving them out for half an hour a couple times during incubation
just my experience this time...

chickeesmom wrote:Thanks, that's great information. Another question, how long in the incubator till they hatch?

Supposed to be 28 days but mine were more like Day 30/31...

I moved 11 out this AM, there is just NO room in that hatching tray, can't belive how much space ducklings need, probably shouldn't put that many eggs in 1 tray I guess.

There's another one almost out so hope it will still hatch and didn't take time to check the others but I really needed to get these ones out, I just put them on the bottom of the incubator in their own hatching tray for now...

So very exciting, the first time you hatch something new....

So neat to witness the miracle of life on a daily basis..I am always in awe..

congratulations. I understand duck eggs are hard to hatch. Lou

Wow 11 ducklings, that is awesome for you first hatch Miry.

I believe there are 12 out now. It might be the end now though, we will see if any more hatch tonight.

16 we have 16 now! I feel like the grandma in 101 dalmations!!