Ctested duck incubation struggle

[laurajones1]

I am incubating crested ducklings and I do understand the struggle! Bought 2 now fancy incubators to be able to keep up with the eggs, to rotate them is the thought. First 6, down to 2 due in 2 days now pretty sure nope. Second set of 6, 5 left due in 10 days pretty sure only 2 left. 3rd set of 11, all are good but shoot 18 days or so to go. So IS following the incubator settings the problem? 99.5°, auto turning, cooling afeter 10 days, spraying and cooling to 87°, and 60-65° humidity until last 3 days right?

 

[Pyxis]

The humidity you're using, is that dry bulb measurement (you wrote it in degrees) or percent? If percent, it's high. I would drop that down and watch the air cell development.

Also, these being crested duck eggs, you're going to have more issues than you would with regular ducks. Are you trying to breed two crested ducks together? If so, you're going to have 25% of the ducklings dying before they hatch no matter what you do, because it's a lethal gene.

Aside from that, since the crest causes a hole in the skull and big fat deposits in the brain, you do get developing ducklings having issues incompatible with life like part of the brain growing outside the skull, which of course would cause them to die as that's not sustainable. They also often have neurological issues, which if severe enough could keep them from being able to hatch. So this is also something to keep in mind when trying to hatch Crested ducks specifically.