Hatching ducklings

[SunnySid3Up]

Hello! We recently discovered 2 broody ducks, and they were both sitting on eggs, we found about 25 fertile eggs, and they all seemed to be around day 10 of incubation.

Last time I attempted to hatch ducks none of them hatched, my humidity is currently at 65% and temp is 100.2 F. I don’t know if I am doing ANYTHING right! Any advice for hatching ducklings? The breeds are, Khaki Campbells, and Silver Appleyards.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

No advice. Just curious why you didn't leave the eggs with the setting hens? Hopefully someone more familiar with using an incubator can help.

 

[SunnySid3Up]

We moved them, because the hens went broody on our neighbors property, and usually we would let them sit but our neighbors asked us to move them. We tried to move the eggs and get the girls to sit on em again but after 3 hours they were gone so we decided to take them in.

 

[FarmerGirl101]

From what I can tell, temperature should be at 99.5F for the entire 28 days and 55% humidity for the first 25 days and 65-70% humidity with the last 3 days. When they start pipping you can apparently let the humidity get to 80% (will help prevent shrink wrapping). I've only ever had my hen incubate a duck egg.

Look, sometimes it happens that no egg hatches. Doesn't necessarily mean that you did something wrong. The eggs might not have been fertile or something happened during development.

 

[SnackMeat]

I would probably have lower humidity. I had a duck egg die at day 21 and say 25 and as best as I can tell, either the parent ducks didn't have the best nutrition or (at least for day 25 duck) the air bubble hadn't gotten big enough and the duckling drowned

My humidity was between 55-65. I plan on lowered it for this next round and more closely tracking the air bubble.

 

[SunnySid3Up]

Thank you! I lowered the humidity to 53