Second Grade Discoveries : Duck Parenting

Duck parenting can be tough business! We are learning all about how to care for our ducklings. We have been busy researching the best way to care for our duck eggs to make sure that their hatchability is high. We learned that hatchability is how likely it is that an egg will hatch. These are some important things we have found -

Duck eggs need to mantain a constant temperature of 99.5 degrees farenheit.

The humidity in the incubator should be around 55. We had to think back to our science unit on the water cycle to remember what humidity meant. Humidity is how much water (or moisture) is in the air. This happens when water evaporates into the air after condensation. Because of this, we have to add water to our incubators each day. We use a tool called a hygrometer to measure the humidity.

Placing water in the incubator to make sure our humidity is just right!

Our digital themometer to measure temperature and hygrometer to measure humidity.

We need to spin the ducks each day. This is because the mother duck moves around while the eggs are under her tummy. She gets up and down. If we don't spin the eggs, they may not grow properly. We put an x and an o on each side of the so we know where they should be turned next. We labeled our ducks #1-12 so we can monitor their growth in the egg.

We need to mist our eggs with water each day. Ducks LOVE the water! When a mother duck gets up and down to swim or drink water, she leaves her eggs for a little bit. When she comes back, she may still have water on her feathers, causing the eggs to get wet. We also learned that eggs are porous, meaning that air or water may get in through the egg, even though it has a hard shell.

Today was our first day candling the duck eggs. We believe that 7 of our 12 duck eggs may have baby ducklings growing inside. Each of them are Runner ducks. We have some Pekin duck eggs also, but we don't believe any of those have babies inside.

Candling duck #7. Thank you, Ms. Shaw, for letting us use your classroom to candle the eggs! Her room is nice and dark.. Perfect candling conditions! We were amazed at what we saw!