abandoned eggs.!

[duckiedee]

Help..lol..

My apricot call duck was sitting on her 10 eggs quite nicely until 2 days ago. Now she wont go anywhere near them. The other 2 females aren't showing any interest either. I candled all the eggs which are 11 days old and 4 are fertile (going by all the pictures i have seen they are about 10 days into incubation). The dilemma i have is that my incubator already contains 2 eggs which are due to hatch over the next 3 days or so. would it be ok for me to store them somewhere like the airing cupboard until the older eggs have hatched in the incubator?? if so how would i keep them in there? in an egg box perhaps? At the moment i don't really have any alternatives apart from a friend who has offered to put them under her laying hens.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Angie

 

[chrismahon]

Once the process starts you can't stop it Duckiedee. We have had a hen abandon her eggs accidentally, went into the wrong nest box and sat on the wrong eggs, for about 4 hours. They went on to hatch under her but it was a warm day. In these temperatures you have to react quickly. They might be OK if you put them in your incubator while the other two hatch and then once out, dried and moved to the brooder you can raise the temperature and drop the humidity again to incubate them. It's probably your only hope.

 

[duckiedee]

hmm was thinking a similar thing but wont the humidity etc harm them?

 

[chrismahon]

Not for a few days I hope, same for slight drop in temperature. As I said that's your only chance now in my opinion. Where are the eggs now as it may be too late already?

 

[duckiedee]

I have brought them indoors and they are sitting in an egg box in my airing cupboard. been there since 10 this morning. I will candle them and see if they are still ok.......if they are i will pop them in the incubator. Then just see what happens.

Thanks for replying by the way