Difficulty of Muscovy Incubating?

[MargaretAnneHK]

Now I have incubated about everything under the sun but never Muscovies. In a couple weeks I am ordering a dozen and going to give it a shot. Has anyone here had success in hatching them in an incubator? What would the dos and donts be?

 

[chickens really]

Being your an experienced hatcher is no different than any other Duck except they take 35 days and not 28 days..

 

[MargaretAnneHK]

Yup I knew about 35 days and also heard not to give up until the 37th day.

 

[chickens really]

Yup I knew about 35 days and also heard not to give up until the 37th day.

Humidity and temp is no different other than the date you Lockdown.

 

[MargaretAnneHK]

Ok, thank you! I wonder why people say its difficult? Maybe the time as opposed to chickens or other ducks.

 

[chickens really]

Ok, thank you! I wonder why people say its difficult? Maybe the time as opposed to chickens or other ducks.

I have no idea...I hatch Calls with no issues..

 

[Miss Lydia]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/incubating-and-hatching-muscovy-eggs.63532/

@learycow is experienced with hatching Muscovies as is @casportpony

 

[Toogoodoo]

We were going to let our Muscovys sit to hatch, but think we might have more luck incubating. Glad to see they're not any more difficult than chickens or the cayugas we have

 

[jofanx]

I've done 5 clutches of 6 each so far. Only 1 survived each hatch. The rest would pip and quit and it's highly frustrating. I've done quail and chickens with absolutely no problems (90- 100% hatch rate), I'm not sure what's going wrong with the muscovies.

Not sure if this helps, maybe only as a guide as to what I did to have such an abysmal hatch rate: 99.5 forced air. Dry incubation (it's moderately humid where I am and adding water causes the weird amber goo to show up) Auto turner until day 27 (for some reason all of mine start internally pipping around day 29-31. Learned from the first clutch of mostly malpositions to take them out of the autoturner a little earlier just in case.

I still have 2 more clutches--one was partially artificially incubated by me to day 25 but after the crappy hatch rate, I put them under a broody to finish (I figured she can't do worse than me at this point). Another broody is sitting on a clutch she's incubating all by herself. If the partially incubated clutch mostly come out okay, then I think something about lockdown/the incubator hatching process is amiss. If they still pip and die, it's most likely the incubation process.

 

[MargaretAnneHK]

Good to know!!! It seems like there are all kinds of experiences with Muscovy incubating!! I am going to give it my best try.