Duck Egg Eggtopsy Help! (warning: graphic pics)

[peacockfeather]

Hi everyone. I'm new to BYC (but not to incubating and hatching). I decided to incubate both chicken and duck eggs in my little giant styro incubator. All eggs were shipped. The chicken eggs were set one week prior to setting the duck eggs. They were all placed vertical in egg cartons. All were turned by hand 3-5 times daily. temp was 102 degrees, humidity ranged from 30 to 50 percent. The chicken eggs had a great hatch rate of 11/13. (the other two died early in embryo development). The duck eggs had movement until day 24. Before lockdown I candled again to find no movement, air cells slightly gray and complete halted growth/ no more veining. An eggtopsy revealed dead in shell as expected. The membranes were dry but that might just be due to being dead for a couple days. Yolk sacs were unabsorbed, one had not drawn in intestines into the abdominal cavity. There was a sticky light yellow fluid in the eggs. Sorry the pics aren't too great. they're shiny due to being in a ziplock bag. What could have caused this? Lockdown humidity for the chicks ranged from 70 to 80 percent and there was quite a bit of activity in the incubator during the chicks' hatching day, which may have further affected humidity. I did not mist the eggs. Any imput is appriciated. I would love to have a better idea of what happened to control some other variables for future duck hatches. Pics show both eggs (2) with marked air cells and corresponding chicks after eggtopsy.

 

[peacockfeather]

Here are the pics.

 

[soso143]

When I incubated I had done chicken and duck eggs also but kept the humidity higher for the duck eggs, the chickens developed near to the end but we lost most of them, but all the ducks did amazing except for 1 out of 24. Maybe the humid was too low??

 

[peacockfeather]

I believe humidity is the culprit. any way to figure if it was either too high or too low?

 

[peacockfeather]

soso, may I ask what percentage your humidity was and dud you mist the eggs?

 

[soso143]

I believe 65 or 70 was the lowest we ever let it get, and kept it in the 80's during lock down. And yes we kept damp sponges inside and misted them.

 

[peacockfeather]

any duck egg enthusiasts have any imput?

 

[vahomesteaders]

The dreaded yolk cacoon. It was a humidity issue. Generaly they tell you to put the humidity higher than it need actually be. Usually 55%-60% humidity at 99.5 degrees with a once a day spritzing after the first two weeks makes for a good hatch. Unless they are muscovy and all bets are off as they have a mind of their own and have a very low sucess rate in most cases. Increase the humidity to 80% the final 3 days keeping them on lockdown.

 

[peacockfeather]

so then humidity was too high??

 

[vahomesteaders]

It very well could be. They look awful wet and likely drowned. The air sack will actually sweat and fill with water. That looks possible here.