Hatching Process and When to Help

Hatching your own eggs is a wonderful experience. Caring for the eggs, making sure the temperature is just right, ensuring there is enough humidity, and then going through the nerve wracking experience of watching the chicks’ struggle to escape the shell can be very rewarding. After all of your hard work, of course you will be nervous the little ones hatch successfully. Then you see one that seems to be in trouble. Your first instinct may be to help it, and that is fine, but you should know a few things first.

As it incubates, the embryo is encased by a membrane consisting of blood vessels. These vessels provide oxygen that enters the egg through the shell to the embryo. Several days before hatching, this network of vessels begins to break down and the embryo lacks sufficient oxygen. The egg will have slowly dried out during incubation, forming an air sack. This sack is pierced by the chick in order to get oxygen. Since there is not a lot of air in the sack, the chick will continue to peck until it ‘pips’ a tiny protrusion on the shell which allows for a greater flow of oxygen. After pipping, the chick will rest for 12 to 24 hours.

Once the chick has rested, it starts to make its way out of the egg. It starts at the pip before turning slightly and pecking again. The chick will continue this pattern around the egg until it forms a ‘lid’ which it can push open and wiggle out the rest of the way. During this process, the chick will take several breaks until it is finished about 1 to 3 hours later.

These rest periods are where most nervous soon-to-be bird parents think they are needed the most. After seeing and hearing movement only to have them go quiet and still can be stressful. Knowing when and when not to help a chick hatch is important.

When you help could mean life or death for the chick. If you help before the network of blood veins has completely broken down, you can cause the chick to bleed to death. Following are three scenarios and our recommendations for each.

• The chick forms a hole where it pipped and does not start rotating within the shell. In this situation you must be careful as not everything went as it should. You can try to help, but stop and try several hours later if you see blood forming where you have broken the shell.
  
  In the following video, we did not see blood until the 'lid' had been taken off. Make sure to stop and try again several hours later whenever you see blood.
  
  

  
  
• If the duckling has started turning and breaking the shell, then runs into a problem and stops turning, you can normally help them without a problem. The key is they have started turning in the shell which means the blood vessels under the shell have shut down and you can help them without fear of excessive bleeding. Gently pull the head out from under the wing and allow the chick to escape the rest of the egg on its own.
  
  The following video shows a variety of eggs where the 'lid' has not been developed and the chick has not turned, but we were able to help them because there was no blood.
  
  

  
  
• If the chick has gone completely around and formed a ‘lid’ only to get stuck, you can definitely help them out by removing the cap.
  
  

Many believe that helping during hatch will make the chick weak. This is not necessarily true. You could have a perfectly healthy and fit chick, but due to less than ideal incubation conditions, it may not be able to hatch on its own. On the flip side, it is possible to get a weaker chick when helping a less than healthy chick to hatch. As author and waterfowl expert Holderread says, hatching is like a “fitness test” for the chicks.

Cayuga Ducks

There is no definitive origin of the Cayuga, but traditionally it is believed that a miller in Duchess County, New York caught a pair of wild black ducks and decided to raise them for eggs and meat for both his table and the marketplace in 1809. It is then said that John Clark obtained some of these black ducks in Orange County, New York and introduced them to Cayuga County, New York in 1840 where the Cayuga got its name. Should the traditional origin be true, this would make the Cayuga the first duck originating from the United States.

The Cayuga was added to the American Standard of Perfection in 1874. A very hardy duck with great utility, they were very popular for meat purposes until the Pekin was introduced to the market in the 1890’s. Today they are considered a threatened species by the Livestock Conservancy.

Adult Cayuga Male

Cayuga are a medium weight duck, about 4¾ to 6 pounds, and have meat that is considered quite flavorful. Due to the dark pin feathers and the dark coloring they leave in the skin, however, the carcass is not as clean appearing as a Pekin. They can lay about 150 eggs a year with egg color ranging from black to light gray. Cayuga are quite docile and easily tamed making them excellent pets. While their plumage can be considered a greenish black, they shine iridescent green in the sun and start to turn gray or white as they age. Sometimes this change starts in one year and sometimes it takes several years for the white feathers to begin appearing. Interestingly, some flocks originating from the same parents will molt to white feathers sooner than others. We breed our Cayuga exclusively on our farm and sometimes at the end of some years we have a lot of whitish birds, and other years there are none. Therefore, change must be induced by something in their environment. What that something is we have not been able to determine.

Freshly laid Cayuga eggs

Breed	Temperament	Weight	Egg Production	Mothering	Bluish Eggs	Egg Size
Cayuga	Calm	4.75 - 6 pounds	130-180/year	Fair	<2%	75-90 grams
Fertility	APA Class	Foraging Ability	Conservation Status	Our Show Quality	Flying Ability	Origin
83%	Medium	Good	Watch	Excellent Color, Good Type	None	USA

Duclair Ducks

A very good multipurpose duck would have to be the Duclair. It was first developed in France and was named after the city Duclair in Normandy. It became a part of the American standard in 1923. In 2012, Metzer Farms in conjunction with Stone Church Farm in New York developed a strain of Duclair which Metzer Farms has continued to breed.

What a usual Duclair looks like.

A search for Duclair ducks will usually produce a duck that looks like a cross between a Rouen and a Black Swedish duck. The strain that Metzer Farms and Stone Church Farm developed, however, is completely white. It is a great egg layer at 130 – 200 eggs a year. At full growth it averages at 4.5 – 6 pounds. It has a calm personality making it a great starter duck for kids.

Today, the Duclair is prized for its meat and can be found in many high-end restaurants. We ship Duclair on a weekly basis for raising and processing to New York and several other growers across the states.

What our Duclair look like.

Whether you are looking for a pet, an egg layer, or a meat bird, the Duclair is an excellent choice all around and would make for a beautiful addition to any flock.

Breed	Temperament	Weight	Egg Production	Foraging Ability	Conservation Status
Duclair	Calm	4.5 - 6 pounds	130-200/year	Good	No Rank

Broody Ducks

Any experienced waterfowl owner has seen the signs of their females going broody. To new owners, however, it can be alarming. We regularly receive frantic phone calls saying that their females have started behaving strangely and that they do not know what to do.

Broodiness is basically a biological clock that tells a female bird that it is time to sit on her eggs full time. When she lays eggs, she is not broody as she does not sit continuously on the eggs. She merely lays her eggs in the nest and then leaves. Once she has a full next of eggs, she will start sitting on the eggs to hatch them. Only in extreme instances will a female become broody without eggs in the nest. During this time she leaves her nest once a day to eat, drink, and do her business. As it is her instinct to protect her eggs, she will become territorial and grumpy. This will continue until the eggs hatch.

Most birds that become broody take care of themselves while on the nest, only leaving once or twice a day to eat and bathe. As such, they are more susceptible to predators, mites, ants, and other bugs and pests. In extreme cases of those that continue to sit on eggs that will not hatch they run the risk of malnutrition, dehydration, and even death.

If you think your bird will go broody, it is important to encourage her to nest in a safe place. This can be done by providing nesting boxes in advance. Waterfowl have a tendency of choosing a spot for their nest and sticking to it even if the nest is moved. (We had a customer call us once at her wits end. Her goose had built a nest in the middle of a high traffic walkway and was plugging up a pipe. We told her to move the nest since she did not want to destroy it, but when she did the goose rebuilt the nest in the exact same place as before!) Chris and Mike Ashton suggest in ‘The Domestic Duck’ to leave the bird alone while she is sitting and to separate her from any males. To help with exercise, Dave Holderread in ‘Storey’s Guide to Raising Ducks’ suggests placing food and water just out of reach in order to entice her to leave the nest in order to take care of her needs. We suggest switching from a layer feed to a grower feed while she is broody. In the situation that a bird goes broody, but there is no possible way for the eggs to hatch (no males in the flock), it is possible to slip fertile eggs under her or even ducklings/goslings and trick her into thinking the eggs have hatched.

There are some instances in which you do not want your bird to remain broody such as when they go broody without eggs or you rely on her for egg production. Once they start sitting, they stop laying. The best way we find to stop brooding is to take away any eggs and destroy the nest. To discourage her from attempting to make another nest, make sure there are no materials available to her to make a nest. In large-scale turkey farms they have small pens in the laying buildings that have cement or wire floors in which they put their broody hens. After they appear to have lost their broody instinct and no longer want to sit, which can take about 3-4 days, they are returned to the rest of the flock.

We find there are some breeds that are broodier than others. Sebastapol geese are the worst of the bunch on our farm, followed by the African and Buff. On the duck side, the Cayuga seem to be the broodiest followed by the Rouen. On the opposite end, we do not really know who is less broody out of our geese, but our Runner are the least likely ducks to be broody.

A bird going broody is perfectly natural and some breeds can be more broody than others. There are steps you can take to help them through it or to stop it. Hopefully these guides will help you with your broody birds.

Khaki Campbell

The Khaki Campbell was first bred in the late 1800s by Adele Campbell in Gloucestershire, England. She had crossed her Fawn and White Indian Runners with Rouens in order to make a breed with exceptional egg laying abilities with larger bodies. Wanting the then popular buff color, she tried to breed her original Campbells with Penciled Runners. She did not get the buff color she wanted, but the color she got was similar to the khaki color used in British army uniforms so the ducks became Khaki Campbells.

The newly dubbed Khaki Campbell was introduced to the public in 1898 and made its way to the United States in 1929 thanks in part to Perry Fish of Syracuse, New York. They became a part of the American Standard of Perfection in 1941, despite the fact their numbers had languished for several years. This changed in the 1970’s when the Khaki Campbell population increased due to social movements to return to the land and duck egg demand increased due to Vietnamese immigrants after the Vietnam War.

 

The Khaki Campbell is a light weight bird, around 3½ to 4½ pounds, and a very prolific layer. In 1920 Aalt Jansen from the Netherlands started breeding Khaki Campbel
l imported from England. With careful breeding and testing, Jansen was able to produce a strain that averaged 335 to 340 eggs per duck per laying year. With a flock of 50,000 that is 16.75 million eggs per year which was extraordinary at the time. The Jansen flock was eventually picked up by the Kortlang family in England. John Metzer has visited the Kortlang farm and our own Khaki Campbells have some Kortlang blood in them.

Jansen Farms Letter Header April 15, 1978

Breed	Temperament	Weight	Egg Production	Mothering	Bluish Eggs	Egg Size
Khaki Campbell	Nervous	3.5 - 4.5 pounds	165-240/year	Good	<5%	75-85 grams
Fertility	APA Class	Foraging Ability	Conservation Status	Our Show Quality	Flying Ability	Origin
87%	Light	Very Good	Watch	Fairly Good	Maybe	England

Golden 300 Hybrid and White Layer Ducks

Golden 300 Hybrid ducks

The Golden 300 Hybrid was developed by us in 1996 in order to meet customer demand for ducks that produce a high volume of eggs but are calmer than the Khaki Campbell. Several years after that the White Layer was developed as customers wanted a duck that had a lighter colored embryo for balut purposes.

White Layer ducks

The Golden 300 and the White Layer are our top egg layers, capable of laying 230 eggs in 40 weeks of production or 290 eggs if they lay for a full year. The only difference we have found between these two strains is the White Layer lays about 1-2% blue/green eggs and the Golden 300 lays about 5% of blue/green eggs. Otherwise they are identical in terms of egg production, egg size, shell strength, etc.

We crossed different breeds of ducks together to make the Golden 300, the breeds of which are a secret! Since the Golden 300 and White Layer are composed of different breeds, they have quite a bit of hybrid vigor and typically have less mortality and live longer than most other breeds. Their eggs are not as large as a Pekin but they produce many more and … produce much less manure!

Male Golden 300 Hybrid ducklings

As ducklings, the sex of the Golden 300 can be determined by their down color. Female ducklings are shades of brown including light brown, chocolate brown, and combinations of brown and yellow, while males are shades of black ranging from stark black to different patterns of black and yellow. As adults, the female can range in color from a light brown to a dark brown with patches of white. Adult males have a much darker plumage ranging in color from all black to black with a white chest to almost a male Rouen appearance. The White Layer, on the other hand, has to be vent sexed as both male and female are yellow as ducklings and white as adults.

If you produce babies from our Golden 300 they will not retain these characteristics of females being brown and males being black. You will hatch all colors, including white, with no relationship between the color and the sex. The White Layer, however, breeds true, meaning the White Layers will produce more white ducks.

Typically they also have great temperaments making them good as pets. We have had some customers, however, that tell us their White Layers and Golden 300 are very nervous and we have had other customers tell us their birds are calm. This is puzzling to us as the genetics does not change. So what causes this wide swings in temperament?

Female Golden 300 Hybrid ducklings

I phoned Dave Holderread, waterfowl breeder and author, and he also agreed that some birds can be nervous and others calm from the same breed. His only guess is that there is a period in their early lives where they are very susceptible to and impressionable by fear. They are scared by a dog, or they are caught and handled by a person, or light movements at night scare them and they are not only terrified but are nervous from that point on.

Can we tell you when that susceptible period is? No. Can we tell you when that period ends? No. All we can say is to allow them to have plenty of room to move away from you in their pen (if they are running or flapping you are moving too close or too fast), warn them you are coming (rattle your keys, whistle, sing, knock on the door or simply talk to them as you approach) and do not overcrowd them. You can always give your birds treats from the very beginning but you cannot count on the treats to totally overcome a traumatic event that makes them overly nervous.

People ask how much egg production will drop in the second generation if our Golden 300 or White Layers are used as breeders. We do not know for sure but our guess is the progeny will lay 5-8% fewer eggs than the birds you purchased from us. We are also asked how much production drops in their second and third years of production. The rule of thumb is a drop of about 8-10% per year.

White Layer duckling

You cannot find a better egg laying duck than the Golden 300 or White Layer. Whether you just want a few ducks for your own family’s needs or you want a commercial flock to sell eggs to farmers markets, bakeries and restaurants, the Golden 300 and White Layer are the ducks for you.

Breed	Temperament	Weight	Egg Production	Mothering	Bluish Eggs	Egg Size
Golden 300 Hybrid	Calm	4.5-5.75 pounds	200-290/year	Fair	5%	75-90 grams
Fertility	APA Class	Foraging Ability	Conservation Status	Our Show Quality	Flying Ability	Origin
93%	NA	Good	No Rank	Not Shown	None	Metzer Farms

Breed	Temperament	Weight	Egg Production	Mothering	Bluish Eggs	Egg Size
White Layer	Calm	4.5-5.75pounds	200-290/year	Fair	1-2%	75-90 grams
Fertility	APA Class	Foraging Ability	Conservation Status	Our Show Quality	Flying Ability	Origin
93%	NA	Good	No Rank	Not for Exhibition	None	Metzer Farms

Pekin Ducks

Pekin Ducklings

The Pekin duck has a long history with records in China going as far back as the 1300s. It was introduced to Great Britain in 1872 and then the United State in 1873. It has since taken over the US market as the go-to commercial meat duck.

The Pekin was bred for its meat, but can be considered a very good egg layer, too. Averaging 8 to 12 pounds in weight, it can lay 150 to 200 eggs per year, making it a great multi-purpose duck.

They are typically processed at six to seven weeks of age with its breast filet being about 21% of the carcass. As such, it has become a very popular commercial duck with a fast growth time and excellent feed conversion (only 2.4 pounds of feed per pound of live body weight gain). In culinary circles, it is the main ingredient for roasted Peking duck.

Female and male Pekin

The dinner table is not the only place the Pekin has become famous. The Aflac duck is a Pekin which originally came from our farm and the
was also the inspiration behind Donald Duck.

We have two names for our Pekin: the Pekin and Grimaud Hybrid Pekin. The Pekin and the Grimaud Hybrid Pekin are the exact same bird, exact same price, just under different names. We did this because some people know what a Pekin is, but not a Grimaud Hybrid, while others may want the Grimaud Hybrid specifically.

The Grimaud Hybrid is named as such because we purchase day-old breeders from Frimaud Freres in France every four months. It is called a hybrid since the Grimaud Hybrid is produced by crossing two strains of Pekin, one strain bred for high meat production and one strain bred for high egg production. By crossing females from the egg laying strain with the males from the meat production strain, you hatch a lot of ducklings that can be grown for meat.

Outside of the commercial market, advertisement, and entertainment industries, the Pekin is a very popular duck among kids and 4-H groups. It does well as a meat class bird at the county fair and is an amazing addition for any backyard hobbyist.

Breed	Temperament	Weight	Egg Production	Mothering	Bluish Eggs	Egg Size
Pekin	Calm	8-12.25 pounds	150-200/year	Poor	<2%	90-100 grams
Fertility	APA Class	Foraging Ability	Conservation Status	Our Show Quality	Flying Ability	Origin
89%	Heavy	Fair	Abundant	Meat Class Only	None	China

Information from our Duck Comparison Table

Are my eggs fertile?

A common question that we get is if the eggs, whether they are the eggs they receive from us, eggs their own ducks are laying, or eggs they find out in the wild, are fertile. The simple answer is that we do not know.

One way to find out if your egg is fertile is to crack it open. While this does prevent you from incubating the egg, it does tell you if an egg is fertile. Maybe you just wanted to check to make sure your single male was fertile. It is also a great way to check fertility if you are eating some of your eggs. If you look closely at the yolk and see a white doughnut shaped spot, then the egg was fertile. If the white spot was solid and irregularly shaped, then it was infertile.

Fertile egg

Infertile egg

The only way to find out if your egg is fertile without cracking it open is to incubate and then candle the egg. This normally takes about six days before you can clearly see development in the egg. You can use our candling photos on our website to track the development of your eggs.

If you do not see development after six days, we suggest you continue incubating as it could be that your flashlight is not strong enough (see our candling page for explanation). If you don’t see anything by ten days, then you know for sure your eggs were either infertile or died very early in development.

We guarantee that 80% of our eggs will be fertile and alive at first candling. This does not mean that we guarantee 80% hatch as there is also a spike in mortality the two days before hatching.The most common times for the embryo to die are the first several days of incubation and the last several days before hatching. So an egg that died early in incubation was truly fertile as it started to grow, but oftentimes these early deaths and truly infertile eggs are called “infertile”. This early death can be caused by many things and is typically caused by incubator conditions - over which we have no control.  

The Power of Science

In the future, there is a possibility of identifying fertile eggs without breaking them open or incubating them. Several research teams have been developing processes to determine the fertility and even the sex of an egg without cracking it and before it goes into an incubator. Egg Farmers of Ontario in concert with Michael Ngadi from McGill University have found a way to determine fertility and sex of an egg using various light waves and are working to make it commercially available to hatcheries. At the same time, Vital Farms in the USA and Novatrans in Israel are looking to put their invention into commercial production which uses the gases exuded from an egg to determine fertility and sex.

This is exciting for large commercial hatcheries producing laying chicks as they do not have a market for the male chicks and currently put down the excess males after hatching. If they can determine the sex before incubation, the male eggs could be sold for consumption. Likewise, infertile eggs could be sold for consumption and money would not be spent on labor and equipment to incubate infertile eggs that have no chance of hatching. These processes should be available to large hatcheries within several years, but when this technology filters down to us and hobby hatcheries

is anyone’s guess. So until that happens you have to do what has been done for the past century - break the egg or incubate it to determine if it is fertile.

Swedish Duck

Records of the Swedish duck begin in 1835 in Pomerania which comprised parts of the current Germany and Poland, but was once a part of the Kingdom of Sweden. The Swedish duck was introduced to America in 1884 and became a part of the American Standard of Perfection in 1904.

The Swedish duck was bred for utility, has a calm disposition and ranges in size from 5 to 6 ¼ pounds. It lays a modest amount of eggs at about 150 eggs per year and has great foraging abilities.

Black and Silver Swedish

Its most prized attribute, however, is its coloring. Swedish ducks sport a white bib and the last few primary feathers of each wing are white which offsets the darker feathers on the rest of the body. Their bills are a gray color while their legs are a redish brown. Unlike the Swedish duck females, the males’ head feathers grow in a slightly darker color.

Blue Swedish ducklings

Black Swedish duckling

We offer Swedish ducks in the Black and Blue variety. Black is simply black, but the blue is more of a slate gray than an actual blue. When breeding, the Black Swedish breeds true, meaning their progeny will look the same as their parents, while the Blue Swedish do not. If you were to breed a Blue Swedish with a Blue Swedish, on average 50% of the progeny will be blue, 25% will be black, and 25% will be what is called silver or splashed white.

In order to produce 100% Blue colored birds, we have two pens of breeders. One pen has Black Swedish males on Silver females. The other pen has Silver Swedish males on Black females. These pens produce 100% Blue colored ducklings. In June of each year, we switch the males so we have a pen of Silver males on Silver females and a pen of Black males on Black females. We hatch Silver breeders for two weeks that we can use as breeders the next year. After two weeks we then switch the males back to their original pens so we can then hatch 100% Blue Swedish for the remainder of the year.

Blue Swedish male

Because of the versatility of the Swedish duck, they are excellent additions to your farm or home.

Breed	Temperament	Weight	Egg Production	Mothering	Bluish Eggs	Egg Size
Black Swedish	Calm	5-6.25 pounds	130-180/year	Fair	20%	80-90 grams
Fertility	APA Class	Foraging Ability	Conservation Status	Our Show Quality	Flying Ability	Origin
85%	Medium	Good	Watch	Average	None	Germany

Breed	Temperament	Weight	Egg Production	Mothering	Bluish Eggs	Egg Size
Blue Swedish	Calm	5-6.25 pounds	120-180/year	Fair	Less than 5%	80-90 grams
Fertility	APA Class	Foraging Ability	Conservation Status	Our Show Quality	Flying Ability	Origin
85%	Medium	Good	Watch	Average	None	Germany

Information from our Duck Comparison Table