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- #21
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.
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.
