Welsh Harlequin Hatching Eggs: Part 2

You can read our planning post here (including egg supplier info)

It’s crazy that we started this journey with these little friends 27 days ago. Well really much much earlier than that if you count all the planning and dreaming, researching, egg deals falling through, incubator lending, supply picking upping and fretting over them.

I had carefully prepped the incubator (loaned from a super generous friend of a friend) and had it warming.

When I realized the thermometer wasn’t working.

Eek! A quick run to the town for a new thermometer and we were in business.

I raced to the post office when they arrived to bring them home safely.

10 beautifully packaged eggs….so great since we didn’t pay for that many!

 Each one hand wrapped with bubble wrap and newspaper to pad them.

One was cracked but I made a quick repair with glue and tissue paper.

They sat overnight and then into the incubator they went.

Candling mid way through was quite the experience. I checked and rechecked a dozen times it seems, trying to learn what I was looking for.

At the end of the day we had 2 infertile or that never started to develop, and 2 early deaths (I had a temperature spike in the incubator and I blame that). We lost one additional one as she was hatching which was very, very hard….we don’t really know why she didn’t make it.

Which leaves us with 5…..4 hatched and one still coming.

It appears to me (a very inexperienced egg hatcher) that the humidity was not high enough through the incubation period in my incubator. Their air cells were very large and they all needed assistance to escape their shells.

I think next time (if there ever is one) I will keep the vent closed down a bit more and add more water as they are developing.

All that aside we are proud to introduce the four little fighters…..

Snuggling up together.

Absolutely exhausted.

This is the dynamic duo. First pipped and first hatched. Talking up a storm already.

You can see the darker bill on the top duckling…he’s our boy! All the others are girls! Just like we wanted!!

One last little gal should be making her way out here in the next 24 hours or so. She’s moving good and chirping but still has a lot of blood vessels in her membranes so we’re letting her take it slow.

We’ll keep you updated on her.

Here’s a little video too:

Sorry for the scream…I was just a little excited….

And a quick dried off video: