Category: Ducks

Farm Automation

Scott set up one of the ESP32’s that we use as environmental sensors to monitor the incubator. There’s an audible alarm if it gets too warm or cold, but that’s only useful if you’re pretty close to the unit. We had gotten a cheap rectangular incubator from Amazon — it’s got some quirks. The display says C, but if we’ve got eggs in a box that’s 100C? They’d be cooked. The number is F, but the letter “C” follows it … there’s supposed to be a calibration menu option, but there isn’t. Worse, though — the temperature sensor is off by a few degrees. If calibration was an option, that wouldn’t be a big deal … but the only way we’re able to get the device over 97F is by taping the temperature probe up to the top of the unit.

So we’ve got an DHT11 sensor inside of the incubator and the ESP32 sends temperature and humidity readings over MQTT to OpenHAB. There are text and audio alerts if the temperature or humidity aren’t in the “good” window. This means you can be out in the yard or away from home and still know if there’s a problem (since data is stored in a database table, we can even chart out the temperature or humidity across the entire incubation period).

We also bought a larger incubator for the chicken eggs — and there’s a new ESP32 and sensor in the larger incubator.

Incubators

We tried a cheap forced-air incubator from Amazon.

All of these little rectangular boxes seem to have the same design flaw: the fan and heater are in one corner of the incubator, and the hot air blows out of one side of the box. So there are really hot spots in the incubator and relatively cold spots.

Since we had a bad hatch rate (1 of 8) with the thing, we decided to get a bigger, better incubator. After researching a lot of options, we got the Farm Innovators 4250 — lots of space for eggs, a centrally located heater and fan that blow air all around, and a humidity sensor (looks to be the same DHT-11 that we use in our sensor). We’ll collect eggs and get a large batch going in a few weeks.

Incubating Eggs

We’re about to start incubating eight duck eggs, so I wanted to record the temperature and humidity settings that I’ve found for the chicken, duck, and turkey eggs (well, future turkey eggs! We managed to get five male turkeys last year)

DUCKS
Start End Temp Humidity
1 25 99.5 55-58%
26 28 98.5 65%
28 hatching 97 70-80%

 

CHICKENS
Start End Temp Humidity
1 18 99.5-100.5 45-55%
19 Hatching 99.5 65-70%

 

TURKEYS
Start End Temp Humidity
1 24 99-100 50-60%
25 Hatching 99 65-70%

 

A Good Ducky Day

It was something like 72 degrees today — which made for a good ducky day. I’ve been breaking the ice on the pond, and it was finally warm enough for them to go swimming. I’d filled a tub with warm water a week or three ago so they got to splash and clean up, but this was the first time they’ve been able to swim around since everything froze over in January.

 

Duck Loss

We lost a duck yesterday — the first prolapse we’ve experienced. She didn’t lay a large egg, and the shell was not soft (we started giving them calcium a few weeks ago). She didn’t seem to be in distress, and we tried everything the Internet said to do to reduce the swelling and get all of the insides back on her inside to no avail. The other ducks were enjoying splashing in puddles of snow melt, but they would come over to the sick duck and give her ducky hugs — putting their neck across the top of her neck and draping their head down. Eventually, she put her head down, fell asleep, and passed away.

The five remaining ducks seemed pretty down today — they didn’t eat much and spent a lot of the day napping.