Category: Ducks

Last year I tried incubating duck eggs twice, and my yields were extremely low. I found that most of the eggs grew to maturity, but never hatched. I concluded that the most likely cause of last year’s poor result was that I incubated in late spring and early summer, when outdoor temperatures were fluctuating wildly. Though I had the incubator in the house, the type of incubator I have is not thermostatically controlled (as far as I can tell)- it’s just controlled by a variable resistor, which you set at the beginning of the incubation period. As the house temperature rose and fell with the weather, I constantly struggled to keep the inside temperature of the incubator correct. So, this year I decided to incubate earlier in the year, when our house temperature remains more stable.

I also theorized that washing the eggs prior to incubation may have been detrimental. Large hatcheries do wash, to cut down on the risk of bacterial contamination on the egg surfaces. But, I figured I’d try mother nature’s approach this time instead. The eggs are naturally coated with a substance that prevents moisture loss, so it’s possible that it’s better to leave that on, despite the added risk of bacteria load. In the photo, you can see how dirty the eggs were. I use an egg-turning device, but this photo was taken after I removed that: the last three days before hatching, you stop turning the eggs so the ducklings can get into position for hatching.

Despite my new attempts, things still didn’t go well! I started out with about 40 eggs, withheld maybe six that didn’t appear fertile at the first candling. But I was expecting a good thirty ducklings out of this batch. What I got: five! A few hatched normally on their own on the due date or one day later. But then, nothing.

Hopefully this doesn’t sound too mad-scientist, but I cracked a few of them open by the third day of lateness, just to evaluate what was going on. Here is an interesting photo of a duckling in his shell, showing how folded-up they are- his foot is on top of his head! His neck and head are completely torqued around, parallel to his body.

In the upper right of the photo is his bill, and above that is where the air sac area of the egg was. So when they are ready to hatch, a small point on the end of the bill penetrates the membrane of the air cell, they starts to “pip” through the egg shell here. Then the baby will work his bill around the circumference of the shell and essentially crack open a “lid” and exit out of that “hatch” in the top of the egg shell. It’s amazing to think they can do all that maneuvering when they are this cramped in there!

What I found when I cracked these open was still-alive ducklings that had not yet completely absorbed their yolks into their abdomens. So, they were developmentally delayed. I believe this is most likely due to the incubation temperature being too low (though you can see I am using THREE thermometers in there for comparison- and all of them read a little different!).

Interestingly, one of these crack-opens survived just fine, what was left of his external yolk just dried up and scabbed over. But, the other ones, though they were wriggly and peeping for the first few minutes out of their shell, perished soon after.

So I gave the rest of the eggs more time, and one actually did hatch out five days late, but did not survive much after hatching. This seems to confirm what the books say: if they don’t hatch on time, within about 48 hours of when they’re due, forget about it. Just discard them, because whatever is left are weak and malformed birds. And hatch time can be hereditary, so you don’t want to keep and breed birds that don’t hatch on time.

I also wonder if ducks aren’t harder to hatch than chickens? Their eggshells are much, much tougher; so I imagine if the hatchling is weakened at all, he just won’t make it out. And, the tiny point on the end of the duck bill meant for cracking the egg is indeed a very tiny point. Where chicken chicks are blessed with an entire pointy beak- a much better tool for tapping oneself out of an eggshell.

My other suspicion as to what is going on is humidity problems. The ducks that did hatch had trouble. Their shells stuck to them, their eyes were stuck shut, and they were just generally gummed up. We had to wash some of them with warm water to help them. This is not normal, ideally they crack out of their shells pretty cleanly, and are dry and fluffy in  few hours.

So, I’m going to try again. This time, I calibrated my cheap-o thermometers with our digital oven thermometer, and I do think the cheap-os are reading a little high (which explains why the last batch was late). And I purchased a hygrometer, which measures humidity in the air. I came to realize that these little doodads are inexpensive, and can be obtained at any cigar shop, made for cigar humidors. The cigar-style is just the right size and weight for using inside the incubator, and can just stick on the side.

So, I’ve got a batch of 36 eggs in there now, humming along at 99.5° at 55% humidity. I’m crossing my fingers that I’ve got it down now!

I liked my original A-frame Duck Tractor design so much, that I’m building two more. One will be for chickens, however, with nest boxes in the back (ducks won’t use nest boxes, so the other A-frames are plain). I’m putting horizontal doors on the back wall, so that we can get eggs out of the nests without having to enter the A-frame.

The only thing I’m changing this time is I’m going to roof the whole structure, instead of putting chicken wire over half of it. I do like the original one I made, as it’s nice for baby poultry to be able to get some sunshine while they mature inside the pen. But since these will primarily be night houses for adult birds, I’d rather have the whole thing sheltered and dry.

I built this poultry feeder A-frame a week or so ago. I used old barn wood this time. I don’t often find ways to recycle the barn wood, because it’s so dimensionally gigantic, dense and heavy compared to modern lumber, that even the tiniest structure weighs too much. Right now, we want everything to be move-able since we don’t know where all our permanent structures are going to go. But, this worked ok: made from barn siding and roof pieces, I think it “only” weighs about 50 pounds!

As you can see, I’m sticking with the A-frame theme, I just like the way they look, how easy they go together, how stable they are in the wind, and that they use less lumber than a cube. This thing I kind of free-handed, I didn’t do any measuring, I just eyeballed how it should go together based on the size of the feeder.

My plan here was to move the duck (and soon to be chicken) feeding station out into the yard. Since the ducks are nicely conditioned to free range by day, but go into their house at night, they no longer need a feeder in their shelter. And, that means they don’t need water in there either (ducks will choke themselves if they can eat grain but have no water with which to wash it down). The end result- less mess in their night shelter, and less frequent cleaning for me to do!

I am really pleased with the way things are working out with the ducks. I worried about predation during the day, since coyotes and eagles are ever-present and ducks are pretty helpless and not too brainy. But, we’ve only had one duck disappear in daytime in the last year and a half. So, knock on wood, they seem to be reasonably safe as long as they’re penned at night. I can stand a small percentage loss, as long as the predators don’t make a habit of it!

The ducks’ free-ranging during the day offers many benefits: they need less purchased feed, they eradicate slugs, they have a healthier diet, their eggs are richer, they stay cleaner and nicer-looking, and they are happier. Though they manage to hide a few eggs from me while they’re out and about, for the most part, they lay early in the morning in their pen. So, I’m satisfied with my egg yield, and am getting enough egg buyers now that the ducks are at least breaking even. What mystery eggs I do find in the yard go into the dog food. The best part is the slug patrol: I have a horrible slug phobia, so the ducks are worth their weight in gold in keeping the yard slug-free!

Only the new ones, though. They are the most obnoxious sounding ducks I’ve ever heard, they honk not unlike geese. They chatter continuously, not just when there is something to quack about. They are way noisier than the older Magpies I have, the crossbreds, and the Runners I used to have. My mom took care of them over the weekend and also commented on their sound, saying they were way different sounding than hers as well.

I’m keeping my eye on them, if I can identify one or two that are louder than the rest, I’m seriously thinking they are destined for the dinner table. I certainly don’t want noisy duck genes going into future generations. 

On the bright side, predation has not been an issue in several months, so the one instance I had was hopefuly an isolated one. And, they are all flocking nicely together; and the young ones are starting to breed. They are sticking close to the house, which is good from the standpoint of staying safe, but annoying because they are messing that area up, and eating out of the container garden. I’d like to move their houses soon, to get them to hang out somwhere else.

I’m switching their feed to a lower fat poultry diet, because the one adult I have is not laying much, and I think she may be too fat. I gave her the benefit of the doubt that maybe she was moulting, but her performance this whole year has really been poor. The crossbreds are just four months old, so hopefully will start laying soon.

On Friday, I picked up the newly ordered ducks from Privett Hatchery. Several people went in on an order of twenty or so ducks, so it saved us a few dollars each in shipping. I also thought it would save me a weekday trip to the Post Office during business hours, but it turned out they arrived on my day off anyway. In retrospect, it would have been simpler to have ordered my own, as I could have done the minimum of ten and not had the following difficulties…

We had a lot of trouble differentiating the breeds. The order contained (or was supposed to contain) straight-run Cresteds, Mallards, Magpies, Cayugas, Runners, Swedish, and Buff Orpingtons. I was expecting the Swedish to be blue (that’s the only “acceptable” color, but they do have black and silver in their gene pool), but all but a few solid yellow ducks, and the obvious Mallards, appeared to be black. The Swedish could  have been mistaken for poorly marked Magpies, so it was difficult to pick them out for sure. If there were Runners and Cayugas in there, they all looked the same to us (but I suspect they were all Cayugas, because we just didn’t see any hint of Runner shape to any of them). 

The other point of confusion was that we had ordered all females. Most of the ducklings had red paint on their heads. But, a few had blue paint, which we supposed may indicate males. We called the hatchery for help in confirming this, but they told us paint at all meant they were females. Ok. The phone advice on breed comparison didn’t help, so we finally just took our best guess.

I think those hatcheries handle thousands of hatchlings, and  their accuracy isn’t real high when packing complicated orders. Their convention is to pack a few extra in an order as large as twenty, but they didn’t this time. And a LOT of the birds were not doing well, they were weak, with floppy heads. I imagine one can expect some mortality rate with shipping, heck, it’s gotta be hard on the birds.

But also when I got there, the birds were not in a hatcher with food and water in front of them to recover from the trip, but rather were out on the lawn with a half dozen kids playing with them like toys. I know when I was that age, I surely couldn’t resist baby animals, and it probably would be safe to play with home-hatched babies that had a perfect start. But, it may not have been the best thing for these ducks after a long shipping journey, to endure the stress of childrens’ exuberance, and be away from their food, water and heat source during waking hours. I felt relieved that the ones I took seemed to still be robust (since they are $5 apiece, after all!). But felt badly that the ones left behind were all destined to be kids’ pets, since probably some of them wouldn’t be making it.

My intention was to get a combo of Magpies, Runners and Swedish. I got some nicely marked black Magpies, the Swedish are also black, which is ok, but not what I expected. And, the one solid black one I ended up with, I think, is a Cayuga, not a Runner. I don’t want them because they don’t lay well (<100 eggs per year), they are more of a meat breed. But, supposedly their eggs are quite blue, so unless the Swedish lay similar looking eggs, hopefully I can just make sure this girl’s eggs all go into dog food, not baby production.

Here are some pics of the new babies. The Swedish have darker cheeks compared to the Magpies, that’s the subtle way to tell them apart, as far as I know. You can see the one all-black baby, that has a small yellow haze on the chest; that’s the suspected Cayuga. Maybe I’ll grow to like her even though she’s not a runner.

I may appear to be obsessed with ducks lately, but I’m not, really! It’s only one small aspect of the farm I wish to grow, but it just happens to be the one going on right now! My third hatchling died a day after the others. <sigh> My guesses of what happened are:

1) the non-medicated poultry grower feed may have been mislabeled; medicated chicken feed can poison ducklings (and boy did their demise look like toxicity). So, as a precaution, I’m going to discard that bag of feed and will revert to just using my adult duck feed (which is really an adequate grower feed as well, at 20% protein).
2) the electrolyte solution I was using may have caused trouble; though I used it on the last batch of ducks with no harm. Many hatcheries and books recommend using electrolytes, but I noticed advice on Privett Hatchery’s website that they recommend against  it, especially in the first week. So, I’m going to skip out on that too.
3) The cilantro- I can’t imagine that being a problem, but just in case, I’m going to stick to very plain, and washed, greens.

I really want to build my flock now, I only have one hen left to lay, and I’m reluctant to use the incubator again until I have a way to control the room’s ambient temperature. So I decided purchasing some might be the best move, for the moment. On craigslist, I found a woman who wanted to go in on a hatchery order with some other people (to meet the minimum order size), so I opted to go with that.

Before those arrive, here is a nice photo of one of the last ducks hatching, just coming out of his shell.