Duck eggs dying during lockdown

[melissap]

I just had 8 out of 20 duck eggs die during lockdown. They were fine 3 days ago when I moved them from incubator to hatcher. Hatcher is an incubator set at 97ish with 90ish humidity. I did open it to spray them a few times, maybe too much? One starting coming out then died but the others seem fully developed (at least as far as I can tell by candling) but dead before they pipped. Help!

 

[Ktbui]

I don't know if you'll read this but the exact same thing is happening to me. Did you ever find a solution?

 

[shmooborp]

@Ktbui, while this post was from 2013, I can say that 90% humidity is likely far too high for the ducks to hatch. I gather that there are mixed opinions on this but- while some good humidity in lockdown is important, 50-60% is plenty. Too much, and the egg will become overwhelmed with moisture and fluid will fill the airsac and also some say the heart- making it more difficult to exert the energy needed to hatch. 97 is also a tad low for heat. ducks do like a tiny bit lower than chickens for hatch ( its a lot of effort for their bigger bodies, same with geese) but something closer to 98, 98.5 is likely better.

hope this helps!

 

[Ktbui]

@Ktbui, while this post was from 2013, I can say that 90% humidity is likely far too high for the ducks to hatch. I gather that there are mixed opinions on this but- while some good humidity in lockdown is important, 50-60% is plenty. Too much, and the egg will become overwhelmed with moisture and fluid will fill the airsac and also some say the heart- making it more difficult to exert the energy needed to hatch. 97 is also a tad low for heat. ducks do like a tiny bit lower than chickens for hatch ( its a lot of effort for their bigger bodies, same with geese) but something closer to 98, 98.5 is likely better.

hope this helps!

Thank you! I did some research and I'm trying this cooling and misting technique. Where I cool the eggs to room temp for 15 mins, mist with water, then back into the incubator. I'm also keeping track of the air sac this time. I'm 20/20 for chick hatching but 1/6 for duck hatching.

Crossing my fingers!

 

[My15Ducks]

I had my humidity for duck hatching at about 65% but when they started hatching it went up to 80-90 because of all the wet ducklings. 28 of 29 hatched and survived. I do wonder if the one that didn’t survive drowned because of the high humidity during hatching.

 

[Ktbui]

I had my humidity for duck hatching at about 65% but when they started hatching it went up to 80-90 because of all the wet ducklings. 28 of 29 hatched and survived. I do wonder if the one that didn’t survive drowned because of the high humidity during hatching.

Do you live up north? I'm in the south so it's already humid from where I'm at. I did 60-65% with my ducks and only 1 survived. I handled the others that went into lockdown and their air sac was still small so I'm pretty sure they drowned.

 

[My15Ducks]

Do you live up north? I'm in the south so it's already humid from where I'm at. I did 60-65% with my ducks and only 1 survived. I handled the others that went into lockdown and their air sac was still small so I'm pretty sure they drowned.

No, I live in Hawai’i and the humidity here is frequently in the 70s. My eggs started with too large of air cells, so I switched to dry incubation for the last 10 days or so. Then increased the humidity to 60-65 for lockdown on day 24 because they were already starting to pip.

 

[shmooborp]

I had my humidity for duck hatching at about 65% but when they started hatching it went up to 80-90 because of all the wet ducklings. 28 of 29 hatched and survived. I do wonder if the one that didn’t survive drowned because of the high humidity during hatching.

Sometimes the last to not make it didn’t hatch for a reason, like failure to thrive. The strength and vitality it takes to make it through the hatching phase is a part of natural selection ( it feels sad I know). Sometimes is incubator stuff like getting too sticky in the egg and getting stuck, or humidity problems, but I’ve definitely seen eggs I did everything to save and they were not the most thriving birds and usually didn’t live a super long time like their siblings. ( not always tho!)