Issues hatching ducks naturally

[heatherdv]

We have Muscovies, 2 drakes and 4 ducks. Last year over Spring/Summer we had 2 successful hatches with one of the ducks who co-roosted with a chicken. But over Winter we have had no success. Batch 1 was abandoned due to a flood. Batch 2 was laid by one of our newer ducks inside the chicken coop, which she also abandoned. Then we managed to get 3 of the ducks laying in the coop our succesful hatches had been in. One of the ducklings from our Spring hatch set the eggs, so it was her first time sitting. There were 20 eggs so I removed 3 and left 17. Everything looked good but when the hatch date rolled around nothing happened. We waited an additional 5 days then discovered 1 duckling had hatched and died. The next day 2 more hatched, 1 was dry and fluffy, the other wet. We decided to leave the nest for 1 more night. But in the morning both ducklings were also dead. We removed the remaining eggs and quite a lot exploded. Can anyone suggest why this hatch may have gone so terribly wrong? I want to make sure this doesn't happen again

 

[sourland]

Sorry for the problems that you have been facing. Several factors that can lead to unsuccessful hatches are: dirty nesting material, wet nests, multiple hens setting on the same nest, too many eggs in the nest (I never allowed hens to set on more than a dozen eggs), hens adding eggs to the nest while the duck was setting, drakes trying to breed hens on the nest, lack of access to bathing water for the setting hens. I never had a Muscovy hen quit a nest. Is there any possibility that the nests are becoming mite infested or that something is disturbing the setting birds?

 

[heatherdv]

Thanks sourland. Yes those factors all make sense. The flood drowned 1 nest, and the 2nd had chickens trampling all over it. I will limit to 12 eggs from now on, I suspect the duck had difficulty maintaining warmth on 17. No signs of mites and no other disturbances that we know of. We think she trampled the new ducklings as there were still a lot of unhatched eggs. Maybe we should have removed the eggs sooner?