Incubation progress of Muscovy eggs

[MuscovyLover]

did you have him on a. Turner?? And if so did you have the larger end up or down??

Okay. So there's an auto turner that rotates them every two hours. Then each night I was also turning them by hand completely from big end to little end then the next night little end to big end and so on.
I have absolutely no idea what went wrong. There are too many possibilities to choose from lol. I knowni didn't store them correctly to start with as I didn't know I was meant to be rotating them 45º each day. These two were laid and collected after I atarted doing that though so I'm thinking that's not it.
They both seemed unable to absorb there yolk sac and were slow to develop so maybe my bators temps were off?
The only other thing I can think of is that I assisted too early, hence the yolk not absorbing and them dying.
Am I even close?

 

[Lacrystol]

Okay. So there's an auto turner that rotates them every two hours. Then each night I was also turning them by hand completely from big end to little end then the next night little end to big end and so on.
I have absolutely no idea what went wrong. There are too many possibilities to choose from lol. I knowni didn't store them correctly to start with as I didn't know I was meant to be rotating them 45º each day. These two were laid and collected after I atarted doing that though so I'm thinking that's not it.
They both seemed unable to absorb there yolk sac and were slow to develop so maybe my bators temps were off?
The only other thing I can think of is that I assisted too early, hence the yolk not absorbing and them dying.
Am I even close?

Ok let me understand you correctly, you had them In the turner and you would basically flip them by hand so that at one point the little end was up then flip them later so the larger end was up????

 

[Lacrystol]

Is that what your saying????

 

[Lacrystol]

If that is what you did then GUESS WHAT you just solved your own problem!!!!!!

 

[MuscovyLover]

The first thing is VERY obvious to me, his leg? Not in the correct position for him to absorb. This tells me right off the bat he's got a deformation, if he was able to get out he probably would not live very long, it's hard to walk on a leg that is twisted up that way. Possible cause, being on the turner.

Chickens can successfully be incubated in a turner with no issues as long as you have the large end up. DUCKS all new ball game, they do not do well on a turner. UNLESS YOU place them on a turner like I do. How do I do it? Well I'm soooooo glad you asked, lol. (Why am I answering myself). Lol. If you go to my website www.lwbarnhouse.com click on the duck tab, underneath the duck tab I have posted TWO methods on how I hatched out calls, this works for any kind of diucks as well as chickens, if you click on method TWo, the lazy method I have a picture there as how I incubate a duck egg on the turner. Yes In a laying down position, I simply tape the eggs to the turner.

Now second thing I see is he looks very constricted, I would say STICKY, to much humidity at some point during your incubating period.

Third the clump, this is usually a thick gooy sticky clump that comes out when they are to sticky. If you we're to rub it between your fingers they would probably start sticking together. It's really thick this basically suffocates them and restricts them from being able to absorb. So even if you didn't intervene and just left him this would have killed him either way. That is why I said don't feel bad about what you did. You at least tried to give him a chance...

With what he looks likes he had every against him.. It's amazing he lived as long as he did.

Iso there there's my book. Lol

Wowser!! That's a lot of information and I love it lol.
I did notice the leg and think it seemed odd when I was taking it out of the shell.
The other one had a crooked beak too. The bottom half didn't meet up with the top. I wonder if they were in the same boat?
When you say being on the turner, what do you mean??

I am ABSOLUTELY going to have a look at your website before I attempt a hatch again. I actually think the auto turner stopped working properly about twenty days in.
It looked to me as though the eggs were too heavy for the plastic turner once the embryos started growing and got some weight to them.
Does your method suggest hand turning? I like this idea because then I know it's done properly but I can't justify needing to turn them every few hours.

When you talk about the stickiness, my humidity was in the 20's for all bar about ten days. At that point I did add some water and it went up to the low 40's then dried out and went back to the 20% area. I see people saying all the time they have thier humidity quite high (40% - 60%) during incubation and they have successful hatches.
Why did mine go so horribly wrong and there's do not?? This perplexes me.

Lastly, the clump that you're referring too. Is this what was in the bottom of the egg? The membrane I took off the outside of the duckling? Or are you referring to something else?

 

[MuscovyLover]

Ok let me understand you correctly, you had them In the turner and you would basically flip them by hand so that at one point the little end was up then flip them later so the larger end was up????

That is exactly what I did, yes.

 

[subhanalah]

Ouch. Hard lesson to learn. But I don't think that was the only thing going wrong. From my understanding, the thick jelly like membrane is indicative of temperature spikes later in incubation.

 

[MuscovyLover]

I don't understand how that solves my problem though?

 

[MuscovyLover]

Ouch. Hard lesson to learn. But I don't think that was the only thing going wrong. From my understanding, the thick jelly like membrane is indicative of temperature spikes later in incubation.

That makes sense to me. From day 35ish, temps were all over the place. There was one time during incubation thatthe plug got knocked out but that was only for 15 mins max apparently. I did open and close the bator a bit during incubation when candling?

 

[subhanalah]

What kind of egg Turner do you have? I have two types, one that keeps the eggs in little holes, so pointy end goes into the hole. The other type, the eggs lay on a tray and there are bars that separate the rows of eggs, so these eggs rotate on their y-axis (the long axis). There is also the kind that has a sliding disk with holes in it and it scoots along, turning the eggs (also on their y-axis) this way.

I believe an auto Turner is far superior to hand turning, ESPECIALLY if you have to open the incubator to turn the eggs. Even if you are able to turn the eggs by hand without opening the incubator, 96 times per day is the ideal that a hen does, so I think 3 times a day is pretty subpar, but everyone has their own experiences to base their beliefs on, this has just been my personal experience.
When I use the turner where the eggs are upright, I turn the eggs 1/4 turn once per fay, this not only makes the development and turning more uniform, it also allows a cooling off period for the eggs.

I haven't had the time to be that involved in my incubations lately though, so right now they are in an allegedly reliable incubator, but even though I'm turning the temperature down, it's staying too high by a degree of two, which is NOT good.