....and ducks in general. I have been incubating Muscovy eggs for a friend of mine. And, in the past I have noticed the same thing with mallard and pekins. Regardless of whether I use a turner, or turn by hand, I generally get close to 100% of the eggs to develop completely but only about 20% to hatch. We just finished with a group of 12 muscovy, and though 100% of them developed fully into ducklings, only 2 hatched, or even pipped. I just opened the other 10 and all were fully developed and all but one had absorbed the yolk sack, but then died. What gives? Anybody else experience that? He had left 8 with a muscovy hen and all 8 of them hatched.
Definitely sounds like humidity problems. I use a wash cloth for humidity when hatching and I have to re-wet it sometimes twice a day the week of lockdown, they just SUCK it all in! If you can't get the humidity high enough you could also try misting the eggs with warm water twice a day at the end.
