Multiple failed Moscovy Duck Hatches

[Quackwacker]

I've done 3 attempted muscovy duck hatches this year with no live ducklings resulting from any of them.

The first this spring was an incubator hatch that had one Duckling internally pipped and a few others where fully developed but had never pipped. I figured I messed up humidity and wrote it off as a bad hatch.

Second hatch was under my one liliac muscovy hen. She had a mix of chicken and duck eggs under her and on day 18 I pulled the chicken eggs out and placed them in an incubator where one of them hatched. The duck eggs remained under her until a few days after they were due to hatch. When I took them and opened them and once again had multiple fully developed ducklings that had never pipped.

Third hatch just reached its conclusion this morning. Under my blue barred muscovy hen she had started with duck eggs and I added a couple guniea eggs part way through hatch that should have hatched a the same time (I'm not sure my male guniea is getting his job done so them not hatching wasn't a huge surprise). She had a weird quirk of taking bad eggs and breaking them into her water dish. Today was 5 days past hatch date so I went to open eggs to find she had broken another egg in her water dish and placed a fully formed but clearly rotting baby next to it. I opened 3 of the 4 remaining duck eggs and they where fully formed but now very dead. The 4th egg had the same appearance as the other 3 but I couldn't stomach opening it.

So what is going wrong? Is it genetic and I should change out my drake? Is it something dietary that I should change (layer feed and free range) or add? Is there something I'm failing to provide broody hens? All have had full time access to feed and a water tub deep enough to fully dip the bill in and to take a bath in. Both where isolated so other birds couldn't mess with them but the last hen had access to the outside part of her brooding time to allow her to graze if she wanted or to swim in the kiddy pool which she did a few times. Ducklings where various colors and had no physical abnormalities. Eggs where all from one muscovy drake and 3 muscovy hens. What am I missing?

We have a Muscovy hen that loves to go broody. Her first clutch she stole from my Cayuga and she sat on them for six weeks when I finally candles them and saw they were fully formed and dead. Her second clutch was her own but the nest was collateral damage in a drake fight. Now she’s trying to go broody again on her own clutch but our speckled white chicken keeps taking over. I don’t know what to do with this girl. We did however have wonderful luck with our other Muscovy hen she sat on 9 and hatched 6 beauties that all made it. The other 3 piped and made it mostly out but it seems that got crushed on the process somehow. All the clutches were fertilized by the same drake. The one who loves to go broody is very passive and leaves the nest often. I’m wondering if that’s why hers did not hatch.

 

[HollowOfWisps]

A couple questions as far as the incubation.

1. What incubator did you use? (Some have a tendency to not hold temp/humidity)

2. Do you remember what temperature/humidity you had the incubator set at? (Absolutely crucial to have the right humidity and temp).

3. Did you keep a non-digital hygrometer and thermometer inside the incubator? (The onboard instruments can be off since with most incubators they cannot be calibrated therefore are not always very accurate).

4. Did you open the incubator at all during the last 1-2 days especially after seeing the pip/pips? (Opening the incubator once an egg is pipped can vacuum seal the membrane around the chick and they suffocate).

Since you did have development and pips with your first incubation I would try it one more time before replacing the Drake. The fact that they pipped, but didn't hatch I would assume that they either a. Ended up suffocating because the incubator was opened during hatching, b. The humidity was too high at the end and they drowned, c. The humidity was too low at the end and the membrane dried up which makes it much harder for them to hatch.