So, my girlfriend and I recently discovered a dead mallard on her college campus. We're not sure if it was killed by a cat or some other small predator or if it was poisoned, but two eggs were left in its nest (several others were smashed). We surmised that it was about midway through laying its clutch, and decided to give the eggs a shot at incubation to see if they'd survive.
The problem was, we did not have an incubator. So, we used the next best thing...
...a toaster oven.
Yep, I know. Crazy. BUT it has held a steady temperature of 99-100 degrees (I'm monitoring it with a digital thermometer/hygrometer) and we have kept the humidity consistently at 55%+ by keeping a ceramic bowl full of hot water in there. One of the eggs died early on, but the other appears to be developing properly, and has VERY clear veins going to the air sac when candled. This is day 8. I'm a bit worried because there's not much (if any) movement, but that's not always a sign of death, since the embryo could just be sleeping/resting. We're moving soon so I think I'm going to build a more proper incubator for it (I've dug up several sets of schematics) that will double as a brooder if this thing actually manages to survive. Power inverters are $20 or so off of Amazon so I'm going to grab one of those so we can keep the incubator on in the car (and I can use it for my laptop afterwards, so it's not a completely useless investment either way).
If s/he does live we're naming it 'Toast'.
Wish us luck! If the mallard baby miraculously manages to survive this ordeal I'll post pics.
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Topic: Unconventional Incubation... (Read 2793 times)