I am trying to hatch Muscovy eggs. Has anyone ever incubated Muscovies?

[hennypenny99]

Well I wanted to hatch duck eggs and I posted on facebook that I would like to buy some duck eggs for hatching. Well a lady in my area has Muscovies and she GAVE me 47 eggs.

They are in the incubator now and I started doing a little research on them. Apparently they take 35 days and I read somewhere that Muscovies are hard to hatch artificially.

I was wondering if anyone on here has had any luck hatching them?

I hope people like Muscovies because I don't have a pond close to the house. We have 2 ponds but they are way out in the woods and coyotes would eat them if I put them out there. I will be giving most of them away and maybe keeping a couple up by the house with a wading pool.

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

Yep they are 35 days to hatch, and no more difficult than other waterfowl are to hatch. The hardest domestic waterfowl by far are the call ducks with their short bills and troubles hatching. We hatched shipped French white Scovy last year. Out of 6 shipped eggs we had 4 hatch.

 

[hennypenny99]

Thanks! I hope they hatch. I tried candling this morning but it's only been 3 days and I couldnt see anything yet.

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

The earliest to candle and see development is normally around day 6, candling again at day 10 and tossing all quiters and those that don't grow.

 

[hennypenny99]

Okay, I will try again this Sunday, that will be day 7 for 25 of them and day 5 for the other 27. Thanks!

 

[txcarl1258]

I hatched 10 out of 12 shipped muscovy eggs. It wasn't difficult at all and I used an LG! I kept the temp at 99.5. I bought an outdoor thermometer from Wal-Mart with a probe. I created a "fake egg" took a ziploc bag and filled half way with water. Rolled it up and used rubber bands to hold it together(got the idea on BYC). Stuck the probe inside to replicate the temp of the egg. Always made sure the temp was 99.5 The humidity was kept at around 60%. I also misted the eggs with WARM water everytime I turned them. I turned three times daily and stopped at day 33. It took them about 24-36 hours from pip to pop.

 

[hennypenny99]

I hatched 10 out of 12 shipped muscovy eggs. It wasn't difficult at all and I used an LG! I kept the temp at 99.5. I bought an outdoor thermometer from Wal-Mart with a probe. I created a "fake egg" took a ziploc bag and filled half way with water. Rolled it up and used rubber bands to hold it together(got the idea on BYC). Stuck the probe inside to replicate the temp of the egg. Always made sure the temp was 99.5 The humidity was kept at around 60%. I also misted the eggs with WARM water everytime I turned them. I turned three times daily and stopped at day 33. It took them about 24-36 hours from pip to pop.

Thank you Carl! I haven't been misting them like I should. Mostly because my kid keeps running off with my misting bottle!

I have an LG too. I have an automatic turner but I am using it on the other incubator with some silkie eggs I bought. When the chick eggs are done I may put the auto turner in there but I am worried the duck eggs might be too heavy for it. They are pretty big compared to a chicken egg.

 

[txcarl1258]

Let us know how everything goes. My scovies are grown now and incubating their own eggs. Between two of my girls they are sitting o 30 eggs! That is on top of the 11 they hatched earlier in the year.

 

[Going Quackers]

I'm curious to see how this turns out as well. My Muscovy are brooding some of their own ATM.