hatching muscovy eggs and all hatched early

[ksavageclarke]

we put 13 eggs in a small classroom incubator and did our best to interpret the many different directions for hatching these tricky eggs. The teachers did a great job and candling the eggs was very interesting. One egg was infertile and was removed. Of the remaining 12 we have 7 lively gorgeous funny chicks. 6 are muscovy (equal numbers of brown and yellow and black and yellow and one half breed chick (muscovy/cayuga) indicating I had made an error identifying the eggs. The chicks that died had a hard time hatching and were weak, or had not developed enough to hatch. We had to help all but the corss bred chick which surprised us by hatching early. All of the eggs hatched early. Can anyone explain why the eggs would hatch early?

 

[Erica]

Hi ksavageclarke,

generally when eggs hatch early it's because the incubator was running slightly hot. This may also explain why some died or weren't ready. Most thermometers (especially cheap ones) are slightly out, some more than others, so checking temperature against another person's reliable one can help, or you can just adjust the thermostat down a little and see how you go next time. Eventually you'd have the right setting (day 21 for chicks), but it could involve some losses to work this out.

I'm not sure of the incubation duration for duck eggs, sorry.

Good luck next time anyhow,

best wishes
Erica