Incubating Duck Eggs - Issue??

[fyrwmn]

I have been incubating Guinea eggs for quite some time. But a friend of mine has ducks and wanted me to incubate some duck eggs (20 total, in two bators) for her.

I Know the incubation time is 28 days. I set the eggs, and monitored temp and humidity as usual throughout the incubation period. Day 28 would be a Saturday. An unexpected trip came up for me and my family for that weekend. Since I had planned on removing the eggs off the turner, uping the humidity and putting them in lock down 4 days prior to that (tuesday).. I planned a very coordinated event of Unplugging the incubator ( 2 genesis hovo-bators), traveling to her location, plugging them immediatly back in, making sure they are back up to temp, then remove them off the turner and lay on floor, put in lock down etc. ( it was a 10 min drive across town).

Well when I got to her house and started taking them off the turner, I noticed that they were HATCHING!!!!.. Almost all had cracks!.. we worked quick. About 10 hours later, the first hatched. He came out feet first and has crooked leg issue.

In the end, only 10 hatched (from 20) and 2 have crooked leg. one is real small, but catching up to the others

question: Could a drop in temp or the bouncing form the move cause the poor hatch numbers and/or the early hatch?

Thoughts?

thanks

Linda

 

[FoxhallFarm]

Wish I could help but I'm nowhere near being an expert in the duck field, but here's a bump

 

[fyrwmn]

thanks for the bump

 

[KellyHM]

Moving them won't cause them to hatch early...high temps will. I doubt moving them contributed to the lower hatch rate either. I've moved my bator 5 hours at a time, plugged into the car jack, when we went out of town over Christmas, and everyone did fine. Duck eggs in general don't have a great hatch rate.

 

[fyrwmn]

Thank you for the response... good info- i appreciate it

Linda

 

[glenolam]

You know what's funny? I have a better hatch rate with my duck eggs than I do with my chicken eggs! Are they more hardy than chicken eggs?

 

[ducklover101202]

Quote:
I don't know but same thing with me. I am better at duck eggs than chicken eggs. Last year i had chicken eggs and none hatched

I wasn't as experienced then though but the chick died halfway through incubation. This year every duck egg I have is still alive and hatch day is approaching soon. It is next week!