For those who incubate duck eggs, and weigh them for weekly humidity loss checks, how strict is that 2.8% weekly guideline?

[SnackMeat]

I have ten eggs (9 Muscovy, 1 Pekin) left from a pretty disastrous shipped batch where a lot had messed up air sacs.

I've been tracking their weights and today was the second week weigh in.

I've been following this:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/incubating-and-hatching-muscovy-eggs.63532/


Anything at or around 5.6% weight loss for two weeks is good.

The somewhat outliers are:

5.1%, 6.57%, 7.69%, my Pekin is at 8.6%, and I have one muscovy at 10.46% which is worrisome, especially since that's been in my humid incubator (versus a dry incubator I had some of my slow losers in for part of the time) the entire time.

My humidity has been between 44-57* because I've been worried about too high of a humidity. However this week I'll run higher consistent humidity. I was worried about ducklings drowning in the shell :/


I've read some eggshells, even from the same hen (whatever the poultry) can have variations in porosity, which could mean faster/slower weight loss.

I wanted to hear about how much the outlier eggs were affected by their weight changes-- if they hatched fine or not.

 

[cheezenkwackers]

I had outliers hatch just fine. But, I incubate dry until lockdown. Too much humidity is way worse than not enough and I live in the humid south.

 

[OneEggToRuleThemAll]

I also live in the humid south (Florida), and I just hatched 7 muscovies after incubating dry until first external pip, at which point I added water to my Brinsea incubator. I tracked the air sac growth on each egg instead of weighing (didn't have a scale; also bad at math), and all air sacs were measuring right on track. The woman I got the eggs from, who lives about 45 minutes away from me, told me she dry-incubates all her eggs (mostly muscovy). I'm glad she told me that because I was planning on following the other muscovy info online which recommend high humidity while incubating, but then I found the same guide you linked in your post and decided to dry hatch and track air cells.

One of the ducklings hatched a full day before the rest even pipped. I did assist, as a couple were malpositioned (foot over face). But all lived and are currently in my bathtub waiting for my husband to finish their outdoor brooder.

 

[SnackMeat]

Yeah, luckily (unluckily) I already read up on trying to keep things on the dryer side due to some earlier duckling eggs dying-- however I am pretty sure those were because the hens were being fed laying but not breeding feed.


I do try to get the incubator down to low 40s but I have one of those stupid incubators with an alarm that goes off when humidity is below 40% that can't be disengaged.

I've been waffling over too much or too little humidity because some were losing weight really fast.

However this makes me feel better that I should just keep on with riding the low 40s as much as possible.

My diy incubator is one that I still have to be around to babysit every couple of hours so some of the slower weight loss losers will likely get some quality time in there over the next few days.

 

[OneEggToRuleThemAll]

Yeah, luckily (unluckily) I already read up on trying to keep things on the dryer side due to some earlier duckling eggs dying-- however I am pretty sure those were because the hens were being fed laying but not breeding feed.


I do try to get the incubator down to low 40s but I have one of those stupid incubators with an alarm that goes off when humidity is below 40% that can't be disengaged.

I've been waffling over too much or too little humidity because some were losing weight really fast.

However this makes me feel better that I should just keep on with riding the low 40s as much as possible.

My diy incubator is one that I still have to be around to babysit every couple of hours so some of the slower weight loss losers will likely get some quality time in there over the next few days.

Good luck with your hatch! I hope all your ducklings hatch and are healthy and happy!

P.S. That humidity alarm on the incubator sounds like a real pain in the neck!

 

[SnackMeat]

Good luck with your hatch! I hope all your ducklings hatch and are healthy and happy!

P.S. That humidity alarm on the incubator sounds like a real pain in the neck!

It is. I tried disconnecting different things and the section that handles the alarm also governs the temperature. When I disconnected the wire and the humidity alarm finally couldn't be triggered the temperature started to climb well past the 104* limit.

Just bad design. Annoying. Good for chicken eggs though as dry hatching previously hadn't worked great for me.

 

[Yardmom]

Just confirming dryer is better with Muscovies.