Call duck hatch rates and general incubation issues?

[Wishapup]

Year 2 of call ducks: hatch rates are even worse, basically nothing!
Between the few I hatched last year and the ones I purchased, I am now setting call eggs from my own small flock. They free-range all day and are decent egg layers so far.

Since the beginning of March I have incubated 72 call duck eggs between 4 separate batches.
Of these eggs: most have been fertile, most have made it at least to late term, and only THREE ducklings have hatched.
There is something very wrong here!

I have 3 incubators in total including 1 digital one (new) and 2 styrofoam forced-air. Incubation is in a Hovabator or the Matticoopx or a combination of the two. I then move eggs into one of the styrofoam bators for hatching.

All incubators have Govee thermometers/hygrometers with continuous data collection set up to provide alerts on my phone when temperature goes out of range. Temps have been consistent.

I have been dry hatching (20-30% humidity, avg 25%) which deceptively SEEMED to work well for the single good hatch I had last year. My next batch I am trying to keep in the 35-45% range.

Batch 1 (some eggs were overly cold before collection): fertility 60%, 50% of fertile eggs made it to lockdown, 0% hatched (no internal pips)

Batch 2: exact same results as above - but this batch did have a temp spike of 106 for like 12+ hours so at least there was a known issue

Batch 3: fertility 71%, 76% of fertile eggs made it to full-term, but only 15% of these eggs hatched (AKA 2 out of 13)

Batch 4 (small batch): fertility 78%, 86% of fertile eggs made it to full-term, again ~15% hatched.

I open all eggs to examine the embryos afterward. Only this last time, 3 eggs had internally pipped and died. Usually they die before pipping and yolk is not absorbed.

Egg turners are automatic. My last batch of chicks had an 84% hatch rate and they are being incubated alongside of the duck eggs.

 

[shawluvsbirds]

Year 2 of call ducks: hatch rates are even worse, basically nothing!
Between the few I hatched last year and the ones I purchased, I am now setting call eggs from my own small flock. They free-range all day and are decent egg layers so far.

Since the beginning of March I have incubated 72 call duck eggs between 4 separate batches.
Of these eggs: most have been fertile, most have made it at least to late term, and only THREE ducklings have hatched.
There is something very wrong here!

I have 3 incubators in total including 1 digital one (new) and 2 styrofoam forced-air. Incubation is in a Hovabator or the Matticoopx or a combination of the two. I then move eggs into one of the styrofoam bators for hatching.

All incubators have Govee thermometers/hygrometers with continuous data collection set up to provide alerts on my phone when temperature goes out of range. Temps have been consistent.

I have been dry hatching (20-30% humidity, avg 25%) which deceptively SEEMED to work well for the single good hatch I had last year. My next batch I am trying to keep in the 35-45% range.

Batch 1 (some eggs were overly cold before collection): fertility 60%, 50% of fertile eggs made it to lockdown, 0% hatched (no internal pips)

Batch 2: exact same results as above - but this batch did have a temp spike of 106 for like 12+ hours so at least there was a known issue

Batch 3: fertility 71%, 76% of fertile eggs made it to full-term, but only 15% of these eggs hatched (AKA 2 out of 13)

Batch 4 (small batch): fertility 78%, 86% of fertile eggs made it to full-term, again ~15% hatched.

I open all eggs to examine the embryos afterward. Only this last time, 3 eggs had internally pipped and died. Usually they die before pipping and yolk is not absorbed.

Egg turners are automatic. My last batch of chicks had an 84% hatch rate and they are being incubated alongside of the duck eggs.

Story of my life!
I have the nurture right 360 and I just hatched 3 ducklings...
Out of an entire incubator full. All but 2 eggs were fertile. Over half quit half way through. 6 made it to lock down. 4 internally pipped and got safety holes. The ones that made it were able to make it to zipping but I had to pop the air cell off so they could push out. Two never even externally pipped and expired.

I currently have a broody on eggs. I bet she'll have better luck than me.

I will say I've been told people have a lot better luck hand turning instead of using the automatic turner. I may go back to that and see what a difference it could make. The first time I ever incubated 2 eggs in a crappy foam incubator I hand turned and they both hatched.