Incubating ducks and chicken eggs together?

Tony O

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If you gotta put both duck and chicken eggs in the same incubator, I would do both at the same time. Not to much humidy for the chicken eggs that way. The chicks would hatch a week ahead of the ducks. They'd add humidy when hatching, about the right time to start raising it for the duck eggs. After removing the baby chicks, you can add more humidy for the last week of incubating the duck eggs. Should work out just right.

:ya
 

ducks4you

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Jared77 said:
What kind of meat ducks? Scovies, Appleyards, Pekins, Mulards? Serve up with a side of whipped potatoes, grilled asparagus and whole mushrooms, and a side of cherry chutney paired that with a Pino Noir :drool

Who's bringing dessert? :lol:
...drooling...

cherry pie for dessert--MY TREAT!!
 

nachoqtpie

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Haha! You guys. :p

They will be mostly Pekin I believe, or Pekin Khaki cross. A friend did give us 4 mallard cross eggs as well. The chickens will be mutts, unless some of the Buckeyes snuck some eggs in there without us knowing they're laying! Lol we only have Buckeye roos. Hatch day is around February 9th and we've got 5 more days until we candle. :)
 

Ridgerunner

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I'll watch this thread to see how it goes. I predict pretty good success for you, chickens and ducks.

I'll be starting my own mutt chicken eggs tomorrow evening, somewhere around 28 to 30 eggs, depending on how many I get the rest of today and tomorrow. And I'm probably two weeks away from starting pepper and tomato seeds. It's time for new life to begin again.
 

nachoqtpie

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I sure hope so Ridgerunner! We're going to order some dark cornish to get some bigger carcasses. Hopefully we will be able to get them April 1st. We're ordering them early February. :)
 

897tgigvib

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After they hatch together and start running around together, will the baby duckies start sounding like chickens, and the baby chickies start quacking?

Will the baby duckies lead the baby chickies into the water for a graceful swim, and will the baby chickies teach the baby duckies to grow up to crow like proper roosters, and to peck at each other in a proper pecking order, and not too much?
 

nachoqtpie

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Lol! We had a discussion on my local board about broodies and one of the ladies said it was fine to let chickens hatch ducks, but never the other way around.... Lol
 

r4eboxer

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I did it last breeding season, with some success. It is hard to get a good hatch rate because of humidity. Misting duck eggs is recommended for a good hatch but not for chickens. The problem I ran into was the different hatch times, you will be raising the lid of the bator when one or the other hatches. This of course is going to send your temps and humidity all over the place.

I'd recommend like someone else said to put them in at the same time. Your chicks will hatch first and you can continue to mist the duck eggs and raise the humidity back up after the chicks are out. You may risk some duck eggs to shrink wrap this way though. I'd leave the humidity low on your 3 day lockdown for your chicks so they don't drown. If you have to help a struggling chick out of the shell you may risk losing a duck to low temps. Just keep all that in mind and maybe have a container with a brooder light set close so you can move your chicken eggs there if they have trouble and you have to help, you can also use a very wet sponge under the brooder light to get some humidity in the air and prevent them from shrink wrapping. Are you using a turner?
 

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