Don't count your ducklings before they're hatched

Hard to believe that it's already been 1 week for the eggs in the bator!! I was nervous to touch the bator after our long ordeal of it taking forever to heat back up but I just had to candle the eggs today. I think I figured that problem out...... There are 2 trays for water. You fill one of them up during the incubation phase and you fill both of them up during hatching. At hatching you need a higher humidity. And the rule of thumb is that it's not how deep the water is but how much area it covers that affects your humidity. My eggs having been doing great at 50% so I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. I did notice my humidity going down this so it looks like the water tray needs to be filled once at week if running at 50% humidity.

Eggs normally lose 12%-13% of their body weight while incubating and do dry out slowly. The egg has to lose the amount of weight to make room for the air sac. This air sac will be where the duckling takes it's first breath and gets into hatching position. Too small an air sac equals the duckling being large and too little the ducklings respiratory system will be affected and it'll have a hard time hatching in a smaller space.
Since an egg has a pourous shell we're able to help control the correct loss by regulating the humidity. Sounds complex hey? Next time you see a Momma duck sitting on a nest remember all the chemistry and minute details that I'm stressing over.

Anywho. I'm thinking that I filled the water tray with water that was just a little too cold. I used luke warm water but I don't think that was warm enough. I think that it took so long for the bator to heat back up because it was heating up the water in the tray too. Make sense? I thought so. So today I put in a little warmer water and we'll see what happens.

So on to candling the eggs. Yes I was very curious if any of them took but also to remove any spoiled ones. Don't need one blowing up in there, yuck!
At the 7 day old stage you should be able to see veins all over inside the egg. With mine 13 of the 14 eggs had veins like a body builder! I was floored. It was interesting that the 1 bad egg actually felt a little cooler than the fertile ones.
(I'm sorry for the quality of this pic. My camera just couldn't figure out I wanted. I'll just pull one egg out later and see if I can get better pics but you can clearly see all the veins I was talking about.)

I did notice a floating "glob" along side the veins. I'm gathering that this is the developing embryo.  I did grab a pic and you can just barely make it out. I've circled it in the pic below.

After having them shipped and battling the bator I was figuring I'd be lucky if even half of them took. I hope the eggs keep doing as well as they are but I figure I'll lose a few here or there. That is where the old saying comes in, "Don't count your chicks before they're hatched". However I do like to plan ahead :)

So as I head into the weekend I'm a happy camper. My eggs are veiny and my daughter just cut her first tooth. What an exciting life I live!! Haha. Thanks for following my story and have a great weekend!