In the last article, I talked about how we were able to incubate our 25-day-old duck eggs after their mother was killed, using only a heat pad and some elbow grease. In this article, I will lay out the process that happened to transition them to our non working incubator shell and hatch successfully.
We incubated them for 10 days, caring for them four times per day, swapping out wet rags to keep the humidity level up.
Despite all odds, I heard peeping one night when I was giving them the last wet rag at bedtime. Hallelujah! The next day, there were three pipped eggs. I could hardly contain my excitement. Hatching, though, posed a new problem – how could they hatch layered under the weight of the rags and blanket?
Here is where our non working incubator came in handy. It could easily be replicated with a styrofoam cooler or even a standard plastic cooler. You just need a way to keep heat and moisture in, but with the ability to vent excess moisture out.
