40 Eggs. 11 Hatched. 2 Died.

[shelbylouise]

Hello, and thank you in advance.
I started incubating on 3/27 at 11p. 3/28 was Day One. Today is Day Thirty-Five. I candled on Day Eight and 4 eggs were non-fertile. Candled on Day 16 and all ducks were growing and moving. Only 11 ducks hatched. Two died. One was clicking when he was breathing and was breathing heavy and laboured. He died the first night. After I realised this duck was sick, I gave all the ducklings 2 cups of Duramycin-10. Another died the second night. No previous signs of illness. 1 pipped 4 days ago and has not moved since. Incubator has been at 55% relative humidity and 99-100F until lockdown. During lockdown humidity was 70-75% and temp. was at 98F. We did open the incubator during lockdown to replenish water source and move ducklings from the top shelf. Any ideas why 22 of my ducks did not hatch?

 

[darkbluespace]

I know that everything you read says that duck eggs need high humidity but that isn't true. I dry incubate my duck eggs with 2 fans and it is still hard to get them to loose enough moisture, I do live in a pretty humid area though.

Some people spray their eggs and that simulates a wet mother duck returning to her eggs, but wetting the eggs like that actually causes them to loose moisture whereas high relative humidity causes the ducklings to grow too large to be able to pip and zip.

It is hard to learn the hard way but I am glad you had some hatch!