My duckling died in it's shell!

[collingwood]

Hi everyone! I have four broody ducks and they are all sitting on eggs but these eggs were beginning to get old so I decided to candle them! Before I could do so a duckling hatched and it's live and healthy at the moment! But there is one problem all the other eggs are now really old and haven't hatched! So I candled one of them and the egg was full of liquid so I smashed it and it was definitely off! But there was a dead duckling in it! What is the problem?

 

[cypressdrake]

Sometimes an egg may get cold and die thru the shuffling around. For many reasons an egg will die. Not all that are fertile will hatch.

 

[collingwood]

It's 75 deg Fahrenheit so how could it be cold?

 

[needlessjunk]

There are so many things that can go wrong. There could of been something genetically wrong with it, something could of happened duing development. unforuntely it is fairly common and there is no really easy way to know or find out what went wrong.

 

[collingwood]

Could it be possible my ducks are to young to have many successful ducklings?

 

[Amiga]

Some ducks are not very good at sitting on their eggs. You may need to have an incubator ready to intervene next time.

 

[collingwood]

Yeah are incubators expensive?

 

[cypressdrake]

I always found my youngest ducks, with the smallest lil eggs, always have the highest hatch rate. Sometimes I think small eggs are not going to hatch, but time after time I find high fertility.

Incubators can cost from $40 to $1,000 for a decent one. Some much higher. A GQF Digital that hold 288 chicken eggs with racks and water system will run just under $900 delivered. A good one for say 12 eggs will go around $100

Here's a good place that builds Incubators. This will cut out the middle man. https://www.gqfmfg.com/store/comersus_listOneCategory.asp?idCategory=2

 

[collingwood]

Okay thanks!