Day 4 and 5 Muscovy egg candling

[JaeG]

I searched everywhere but couldn't find how early you can see development in Muscovy eggs. This is the first time I've hatched duck eggs and not being the most patient soul I've been looking for signs of life the last couple of days. I thought I'd post what I've found in case someone else has the same question some time in the future.

These were shipped to me and I kept them upright for 2 days in the incubator as their air cells were a bit loose. By day 3 they looked stable enough to lie down. I'll be weighing them in a couple of days to see how I'm going humidity wise. Some of the air cells look a bit big to me.

On day 4 I could see development in 4 out of the 9 eggs.
The signs ranged from this:

To this:

On day 5 (today) I have 6 looking hopeful and the two extremes are:

(slight hint of a circle inside the yolk that wasn't there yesterday)

And

Only 30 days to go.

 

[casportpony]

Great pictures!

 

[JaeG]

My eggs were right on track at their day 7 weigh-in.

The eggs are from 3 different nests and were labelled as either 'front nest', 'side nest' or 'back nest'. So I've labelled them as F1, F2, F3, S1, S2, S3, B1, B2, B3.

I'm really hoping there's a girl in one of the 'B' eggs as those are the huge ones. Unfortunately eggs S1 and S3 look to have turned into blood rings, but there are 7 others (and that would be more than enough).

Photos day 8:

 

[casportpony]

 

[Isaac 0]

Looking good! Whats weight loss for Muscovy's? 14%?

 

[JaeG]

Looking good! Whats weight loss for Muscovy's? 14%?

The article I found said 2.8% per week.

We usually hatch quail and they'd be half baked by now. We've gone from one extreme to the other, but at least Muscovy eggs are much easier to see into. I think our son was expecting to see more when we sat down to candle though.