Preparing for Hatch!

Today, we prepare for our hatch! Our ducks are due on Monday, which means we need to make the eggs as comfortable as possible. We took our automatic turner out, because the eggs don't need to be turned anymore. We also put cheesecloth over the grates so the duck's feet don't get caught after they hatch. We spread the eggs out, so the ducks have lots of room to get out of their eggs.

Taking the turner out

We put wet sponges in and added more water to increase the humidity in our incubator, ducks need high humidity in order to break free of their shell

Putting the cheesecloth on

Carefully placing the duck eggs back in the incubator

Ready to Hatch!!!

Stay tuned....by next week, we will have pictures of baby ducks =-)

Ms. Weiss' class!

Happy Friday! This has been a very exciting week for us. We got two letters from other classrooms. Today, we got a letter from Ms. Weiss' class in Staten Island, NY. They sent us name suggestions and drawings of baby ducklings!!!

Thank you Ms. Weiss' class!

Duck Brooder

Once our ducks hatch we will have to move them from their incubator into their brooder. A brooder helps to maintain a warm temperature and comfortable environment for the ducks. We will put corncob litter on the bottom of our black bin, that will keep the ducks from slipping and will be easy to clean up after they use the bathroom!



 


This is what the ducks will drink out of, we have to put marbles in the bottom because baby ducks get VERY excited around water. We have to make sure they don't get too wet when they first hatch.




This is the lamp we will use to keep the ducks warm!

Learning all about how we feed baby ducks!



Where will the ducks live?

When our ducks hatch, they will stay in our classroom for a week! After a week they will need to go to a farm where they can live outside and grow nice and big. Brittany, one of the staff in our classroom is taking the ducks home to her farm. The farm is in Churchville. Brittany will take pictures of the ducks as they get bigger and bring them in to share with everyone. Maybe, if we are lucky, we will get to visit with our ducklings once they've grown up! We've attached some pictures of the other animals that live on the farm, do you think the ducks will be friends with them?

This is Stewart!

My name is Stitch

This is Pepper the Goat and Brittany

My name is Jack

Sebastian, Flounder, and Spiffy

Mrs. O'Reilly's Class!

Happy Monday! We were very excited this morning to see that another classroom wrote to us about our ducks! Mrs. O'Reilly's class from Canandaigua Elementary school sent us a letter and a list of names for our ducks. We put the letter and the names out in the hallway for everyone to see!!!!

Thank you Mrs. O'Reilly's class! We will let you know when we vote on names!

Where did our duck eggs come from?

Our duck eggs came from Nature Berry farms! It is in Macedon, NY. The farm has ducks that lay eggs. The farmer goes around and collects the eggs after the duck laid them. We were supposed to have 12 eggs, but because the weather is so cold the ducks were not laying a lot of eggs. We still have 8 eggs though, and hopefully we will have 8 ducklings!

Nature Berry Farms

What do baby ducks eat?

When baby ducks hatch, they eat starter feed. The ingredients in starter feed are:

• Ground corn
• oats
• alfalfa
• hay
• soybeans
• fish meal
• wheat bran
• vitamins
• eggs
• milk

This is our bag of starter feed! It weighs 5 LBS!