Well, the Rouen duck hatch was a failure. One duckling out of 20 eggs isn’t good hatch rate.
But because the remaining duckling needs companionship to learn how to be a duck, a trip to the feed store was due.
Two Rouen/mallard crosses, which are sold as “mallards” this time of year, and two pudgy, lazy pekins were added to the brooder. The Rouen that hatched is the duck in front of the pekin that is lying down.
I used to incubate chicken eggs when I was a kid, and not a single egg hatched.
For just a few ducks, I don’t think incubating is worth it. Plus, it is crushing when you have one that was able to pip through a shell and then die, which is what happened this morning.
All the eggs in the Janoel incubator are dead. The embryos formed so perfectly for 3 weeks, and then they just died.
These five will be a good start to a flock, which will likely be augmented with Khaki Campbell mutts as the summer progresses.
So the Rouen hatch was a failure.
I’m so sorry. That sounds very discouraging, but it’s good you have company for the duckling now. I look forward to watching them grow.
Not a failure surely, one lives and s/he looks healthy. Perhaps when you look back you will find you have learned something that will give the next hatch a better survival rate. I hope so. I enjoy your posts.
Having you been watch the PA Game Commissions live cam on the Hanover eagle nest? Two eaglets.
Why did they not hatch properly?
Bad incubators.
One incubator just didn’t hold humidity very well, and the other one didn’t hold heat very well.
Awww, that’s a shame :(
The new ducks look cute together with the Roen though :) It’ll be interesting seeing the differences as they develop together.
As there are strong and intelligent working retrievers and also too heavy and a little dumb show retrievers ; there are two kinds of ducks Rouen: French Rouen duck (an ancient and rare breed that are known and which is almost exclusively in France) and modern Rouen duck (an English creation for poultry shows!), the English Rouen duck is a big supertype duck that is not known to be very fertile, it heavy and awkward, fertilization is more laborious!
There is also Rouen Clair, which is lighter in color but similar to what we call the “production Rouen.”