Duck Egg Hatching Methods

[Perry17]

I have seen piles of different ways to hatch duck eggs, but have found most are hard to understand and don't make much sense. Water misting, cool off days, same as a chicken, and piles of other ways. Do any of you have a method that works best for you?

I have incubated all kinds of different hatching eggs with no problems over the years, chicken, quail, turkey, guinnea, peacock and who knows what else lol. But I have tried and tried to incubate duck eggs and it never works. I have a female pekin that lays huge nice eggs almost everyday. My drake is a khaki campbell. I tried incubating 3 different batches last winter, but they would all stop developing around the third week. I even cracked some to autopsy, they all looked like perfectly forming ducklings with no issues. I just assumed it was the winter weather and humidity, and tried again this summer. They were all doing great and were very active at around 2 weeks through incubations...then Irma happened and we lost power for a few days. I lost them all, so I am going to start over again and thought I would ask you guys before I started any new eggs.

Thank you!

 

[Pyxis]

With the exception of Calls, I do mine the exact same way I do my chicken eggs, often doing batches of chicken and duck eggs together. I always get good results that way. With your late death ones, it does sound like it was more than likely a humidity issue. You might want to try weighing your eggs to monitor their moisture loss. That will help you pinpoint where your humidity should be for them.