Dead babies at day 7. Questions

[cohobby]

I decided to try and hatch some of my own duck eggs. They are Black Swedish, Welsh, and Runner crosses. At day 4 out of 19 I had 7-8 that had strong babies. I candled tonight which would be day 8 and all but 1 died. Any ideas on why? According to my temp guage, the temp was around 99, never above 100 and the humidity was at 60-70. I had read that is how high humidity needs to be. The ducks are young, not even 1 year. Could they be to young to have strong babies?

Thanks for any help. Don't want to go through this again. It is kind of sad.

 

[Peep_Show]

It could be a couple of things.
1) Was your incubator sanitized before you started your hatch? (germs got 'em)
2) Was there any fresh air able to get into the incubator? (they suffocated)
3) Where was the viable one location-wise compared to the others? (possible heating element malfunction...i.e., only one side heating or superheating to compensate which cooked the nearby eggs)
4) Rough handling while candling?
5) Temps too low? (although that would mainly just slow the growth, not kill it in the range you've mentioned)
and there's probably lots of other reasons that I just cannot think of right now. Eggs dying are not uncommon. Maybe you just had a batch of quitters.

Don't get discouraged.... If hatching were easy and 100%, then everybody would be doing it. It is a challenge....

 

[Megan Amber]

I am sorry to hear that. I go through the same thing and unfortunately don't really know why it happens. It is very sad. The one thing I changed that made it a little better(but not much) was my incubator. I got a new that had a stronger fan in it. I hope you get some answers.

 

[cohobby]

I did notice that the ones in the middle of the incubator were the ones that were alive at day 4. The one that is still alive was in the middle. I had ventilation and it had been cleaned. Makes me wonder if it was a heating element thing. Thanks.

 

[cohobby]

I moved my live baby in with the chicken eggs, I will figure it out when I need to hatch the chicken eggs.

 

[Megan Amber]

Never lose hope!

 

[ChucktheChick]

Dont give up ; things like that are sad but we all go through it in some parts of our lives. Keep trying to incubate!