As Herringbone said, raising chicks inside is messy. While your winters are short, I think I would wait a little while, so that the chicks can be raised in an unheated shed rather than the garage once they are beyond the initial, more delicate stage, and can handle temperature swings. Do you also have an brooder set up, or can you make one? If you do a search for incubators, hatching eggs and or brooders/raising chicks, etc. on the forum, you should get lots of info - it comes up regularly in the spring. Also, not from experience, but from reading, homemade incubators are difficult to keep evenly warm and humid, so your rate of unhatched eggs will be higher than with a purpose built commercial incubator. I don't know how old your kids are, nor their temperaments, but can they simply accept that some of the eggs won't hatch, or is that going to cause problems? Can you start now and put up flyers or ask at the local feed store(s) if anyone has one they can lend you, maybe for a percentage of chicks, if it is a big one?

Look on the Internet to find out if Magpie ducks will incubate (set on) their own eggs. As long as they are not in with a lot of other birds, I suspect that she would succeed in hatching her own. Sometimes they lay an egg every other day, until they reach what they consider to be a full clutch. Before they are actually starting to set on the eggs seriously, you'll notice that she will start building the nest and lining it with fluff from her own breast. This is, of course, if she will set on her own. I reckon that those eggs will be good for at least two weeks, while she gathers more. If you decide to use an incubator, I'd recommend one with a thermostat, hydrometer, forced air and egg turner; that is if you can afford it. I used to purchase the Styrofoam cheapo incubators, about every 12 months. They would get contaminated during hatching and after a couple of uses there was no way to use them successfully, as the eggs would become contaminated and cause sick, deformed chicks. Ducks require a bit more humidit'y for incubation, so you'd have to research that. I have hatched duck eggs under a broody hen. That works. But once they hatch, you have to take the ducklings and raise them yourself. The hen doesn't "speak the same language" as the ducklings. They don't communicate well and the ducklings abandon the hen after less than a day. Hope this helps, George

It's been a while since the last post on this subject but I am in need of some imformation regarding a chicken hatching duck eggs. I bought twelve fertile mixed breed duck eggs off of ebay hoping to get my broody jersey giant hen to maybe hatch some out. All's fine so far; she's doing her job (it's only been a few days). She's four years old and has never even seen a rooster only her bunk mate she was raised with (a red sex-link). what I need to know first is why is she exibiting this behavior now and to such an extreme that she's been in the nesting box almost constantly for the last month and a half. Is she going to quit on me before any of the six eggs can hatch? The second thing I need to know is how successful am I going to be hatching out any of the remaining six in my homemade incubator when I am having trouble maintaining a constant temperature and humidity at least the first three days (I think I got a handle on it now) but has the damage already been done (too soon to candle). What are my chances as opposed to Isabel's (the hen) in getting any duck babies to hatch? Oh, one more thing about Isabel, she is a free range hen who would only come in the coop to eat and put herself to bed at nightfall and all I had to do is be there to close the door. Now she acts broody and strange when she once was a chatty, personable, happy girl. Was this the wrong tact to take, giving her fertile eggs? The reason I choose duck eggs is I didn't want to take the chance of getting a rooster (don't like 'em).

Goodness!! 50??? I am having a hard time keeping up with the 18 I have, lol. (last 2 eggs hatched today) apparently, every single egg I found was also fertile, and they all seem to be thriving so far. I am so glad all of these eggs hatched at almost the same time, I think it will be easier since they will all be so close in age, and hopefully size. The other 8 cats I have, are at all different stages, and I have had to move/separate them so many times it is ridiculous, some of them seem to be bullies, lol. The largest one of the last bunch is now in a "habitat" by himself, because he would not stop picking on the smaller cats and taking their food, and they weren't that much smaller than him. I have one small one who bullies cats WAY larger than him, lol, I had to move him after I saw him slither up to one of the big cats and try to bite them, or at least that is what it looked like he was doing. I have figured out how to tell if I need to give them more food, they "wander" when they want new, or more leaves, or at least these do, because every time i have had one wander away from the food, if i put new food down, they come back. The largest one will start eating the leaves before I even set them down in his cage, lol, he bites them and starts tugging on them. I am hoping everything works out for all of them, and that they all keep eating and growing, so far so good though. And as far as the food situation, the lady who lives next door to my aunt, does have a safe host tree, yayy!! So I am going tomorrow to cut some more leaves for them, and my safe dwarf tree is getting new sprouts of leaves in several places, so they should be big enough to cut soon, so it all seems to be working out in their favor so far! I too am interested to see when these two that pupated decide to eclose. The 1st one pupated on sep 18, second one on sep 23, I was able to move them into the reptarium cage I bought without harming them or disturbing them, so I am not so worried about them eclosing when I am not home now that they are in the mesh cage. what have the temps been lately in your area? The high was 95 here today. Supposed to get cooler this weekend though. Was it you who said you had a GST chrysalis turn black before eclosing? I have been checking them for any signs of change, but they haven't changed one bit.