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Home made duck incubator2007-11-24 17:20:21

I found 5 duck eggs outside my house. Hurricane Ernesto is heading towards me as we speak and i dont want to leave them ouside. How could i incubate them?

Answers:

For now you'll want to keep them at 90 degrees F, ambient temperature. You can warm them in a homemade "brooder box" using a heat lamp (a 70 watt bulb for now, if you don't have infrared, will suffice pointed down into the "nest" in a stretch-neck desk lamp), some soft bedding, and a plastic storage box.

Turn the eggs three or four times a day. Think of it as incubating them "evenly". Keeping the eggs closer together by using a smaller box will help keep the heat around them. Don't cook them with the lamp. Use caution, and keep it about ten inches above them, and underneath them it's wise to keep a heating pad on the absolute lowest setting. This ought to mimic the mother's undercarriage temperature fairly well. Many baby birds are kept this way while hand feeding, when brooder boxes aren't available.

If they happen to hatch, you'll need something to feed them. Ducks are precocial at birth, so you won't have to worry about hand feeding. Just keep them a little warm by continuing to house them side-by-side, on the pad on low for a day or two, but out of the lamp.

If you get around to it, you can usually find people to make you and sell you brooder boxes (pretty inexpensive: just infrared bulbs and a wooden box, usually) here:

http://www.upatsix.com/classifieds/fs_re.