How to Hatch Duck Eggs & Care for Ducklings

Ducklings are relatively easy to hatch successfully, given the right equipment, and proper care ensures that they will grow into healthy pets. Never take on baby ducklings without careful forethought; while hatching is easy, it requires constant attention, and baby ducklings need special care and protection, especially during brooding, which takes place during the first two months of life. Once they are adults, they require less care, but constant access to fresh water and adequate shelter.

Things You'll Need

  • Incubator
  • Duck eggs
  • Pencil
  • Hatcher
  • Brooder, or fenced off area with heat lamps
  • Clean towels
  • Empty gallon milk jugs
  • Unmedicated chicken mash
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Instructions

    • 1

      Start your incubator and set to 99.5 degrees F with a relative humidity of 84.5 degrees F on a wet bulb thermometer at least a day before placing duck eggs inside. This stabilizes the temperature and humidity inside the incubator.

    • 2

      Select your eggs for hatching. Look for smooth, uncracked shells. If desired, you can candle them at this point by holding up to a light bulb in an otherwise dark room to look for misshapen or double-yoked eggs. Set aside any that you find, as they will not hatch.

    • 3

      Place the eggs in incubator and turn them at least four times each day.

    • 4

      Transfer the eggs to hatching trays after 25 days and set them in the hatcher. Set the hatcher temperature to 99 degrees F and the humidity at 88 degrees F on a wet bulb. As the eggs pip, or move, increase the humidity 13 degrees and increase the ventilation to the eggs by opening the hatcher ventilation slats.

    • 5

      Allow your ducklings to hatch themselves. Only assist them if it takes them for than 12 to 24 hours to break more than a small hole in their shell.

    • 6

      Transfer hatched ducklings to a brooder, or a large box that has heat lamps and is lined with clean towels, as soon as they are out of their shell.

    • 7

      Provide unmedicated chicken mash for your ducklings to eat. Ducklings eat heartily, so watch the food levels and how much feces they produce to determine the best amount of food to provide at feedings.

    • 8

      Rinse out the empty milk jugs you have collected, and cut a hole approximately 6 inches from the bottom--large enough for a ducking to poke its head through. Fill the jug with water to just below the hole and place it in the brooder. Ducklings require water to swallow, but coincidentally, are apt to drown themselves before they reach 6 weeks, so jugs cut in this allow the ducklings access to ample water safely. You may have to teach the ducklings how to reach the water by pushing their heads through the hole a few times.

    • 9

      Protect your ducklings from cold, cats, dogs and children. Small ducklings are virtually defenseless, and after hatching, you are, for all intents and purposes, their mother.