Duck eggs..... what could have gone wrong???

[Senna95]

Okay, I had duck 16 eggs in the incubator: 8 cayugan, and 8 pekin. 7 of the pekin hatched just fine, but only 2 cayuga hatched. They died in the egg.... didn't pip, didn't do anything.

I opened the eggs, and the chicks looked fully developed.

What could have happened?

 

[momma's chickens]

I had this problem last year and my problem was humidity. My babies were completely formed but there was a ton of water in each egg. I am sorry!

 

[kelseygirl707]

momma's chickens :

I had this problem last year and my problem was humidity. My babies were completely formed but there was a ton of water in each egg. I am sorry!

Yep, I had that problem too, the humidity was too high, and the babies were covered in a jelly like substance which suffocated them.

 

[Brickman House]

Could be the humidity, but it's also noteworthy, to my mind, that far more of the Pekins hatched successfully than the Cayugas.

I just finished an incubation of Pekin crosses where 15 of 17 duck eggs hatched. Interestingly enough, the two that didn't hatch were Pekin x Rouen crosses, and the third Pekin x Rouen cross in there was late and had difficulty hatching. She's still noticeably smaller than the others. So next time I incubate ducks, I suspect I'll isolate my Rouen hen when I collect, and just not incubate her eggs.

Don't know if these were your eggs that you were incubating, but it might be worth taking a look at your Cayugas, and seeing if something among them could be affecting the quality of their eggs.

 

[Senna95]

Humidity: a possible problem, since the Cayugan eggs were a bit smaller then the pekins, so may have absorbed more water per volume. They were rather wet inside, though the "airsack" was about the right size.

Egg quality: I'd think that they wouldn't have developed all the way, and THEN died. I'd think they'd have died earlier in the stage.

PS, I also hatched chickens and quail in the same incubator, without problems. Just the cayugans. Maybe too much inbreeding in the flock I got the parents from..... resulting in weak chicks?

I've given the ducks to a family down the street who don't want to breed for babies. It was time to narrow down to one breed anyway, and now my pekins get to get out of their pen and free-range, which makes them VERY happy!

 

[Brickman House]

Senna,

You might think a lesser quality egg wouldn't develop as far along, but of my three Pekin x Rouen crosses, the two that didn't hatch were fully developed-- just didn't pip and hatch. And then there was the third that I mentioned before, that had problems hatching.

Who knows, egg quality may not have been a factor for you. I'm fairly well convinced it was for me, though. I had six Pekin eggs, six Pekin x Blue Swede, three Pekin x Cayuga, and three Pekin x Rouen in my hatch. Tossed one clear at Day 7, and the other 17 made it to lockdown. My incubator's a King Suro, and it held rock solid temps and humidity throughout. 14 out of 17 hatched clean, right on time, and are the heartiest ducklings I've ever seen, two weeks later. The three Rouen crosses having problems just seems to be too much coincidence to me.

Your mileage may vary, of course, and it sounds like you're concentrating on your Pekins from now on (beautiful ducks, I love mine!) so it's probably not an issue for you going forward anyway.

 

[cqnguyen]

Hi everyone,

I was thinking about getting some cayugan duck eggs to incubate (along with Muscovy Ducks), but I'm not sure of what the humidity should be.

Could I incubate these together?

I saw some information about this:
The Cayuga duck will more often sit on and hatch her eggs than other domestic breeds of duck. Incubation for the eggs is 28 days. When using an incubator the temperature should be 99.5 °F at 86% humidity for days 1-25, and 98.5 °F at 94% humidity for days 26-28.


Isn't that a bit to freaking high!?!?!?!

 

[kelseygirl707]

Quote:
That does seem really high, maybe they are wetbulb readings? I don't really understand wet bulb readings, but I know they are much higher than normal.

 

[cqnguyen]

Yeah,

I found that on Wiki, and I can't find out anymore information about the right temp for incubating these eggs. I have a King Suro as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cayuga_Duck

Does it matter about what Duck eggs you are incubating?

I saw that people are just doing the Humidity at 55% and hatching at 70+% (would this be correct?)

 

[Sweetfolly]

Quote:
Yes - it is too high, and it's not correct. I suspect that kelseygirl707 is right that those are the wet-bulb readings, not the actual humidity percentages.

I incubate my duck eggs at 35-45% humidity for the first 25 days, and then bump it up to about 75% for the hatch, and I've never had a problem. The best thing you can do is to monitor the air cells in the eggs by candling, and adjusting the humidity based on the size of the air cell. That's how I started, and now I know what humidity works for me.

Here is a picture from poplarfarmcottage.com of the air cell development of a duck egg (the numbers represent the day of incubation, and correlate to how large the air cell should be at that stage):