Silkie Ducks, eggs not hatching

[bluehousefarm]

I've been trying to hatch eggs from my flock of Silkie ducks for a few month now. I only have two ducks laying right now, but I put all their eggs in the incubator. About eighty percent of them are fertile and develop fine until they just die around day 28... I have no problems hatching chicken eggs, I think the duck eggs' air cells are fine and the right size when they are supposed to hatch, but nothing ever hatches!!! Am I missing something? I'd really like some more Silkie ducks... Does anybody have an idea what I might be doing wrong? I have an Brinsea Octagon incubator and my chicken eggs hatch right on day 21 with no problems whatsoever... I have been reading on the forums about ducklings taking longer to hatch, so I already leave the eggs in the hatcher until day 35....
Thanks for any advise you could give!

 

[Amiga]

Have you seen this?

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/491013/goose-incubation-hatching-guide-completed

I am not a hatcher, but this seems to be quite full of good information.

 

[bluehousefarm]

Thank you, I'll look at it right now!

 

[mominoz]

I hatched my first silkies last year in a Hovabator ,still air. They were all out of my black 2 yr old pair. I had some less than a year old I tried to hatch from that were duds.Let me see if I can remember. I followed Holderreads guide to hatching ducks. In his book. "Storeys guide to Ducks". I did try to mist some...,I opened to cool eggs as directed (most of the time), I tried to keep temp at 101-102. I turned 3X a day mostly. Humidity around 40-45%, upped it the last couple days and locked down the last 3 days. I had a group one year that all died around the 28 day and noted in the book the things that could cause it. I think mine was too low a temp..... but it included runners and hookbills .Also stop turning and messing the last couple days was a biggy

 

[bluehousefarm]

I figured it out! The humidity was too high during incubation, even though it was right around 40 percent. Somehow the eggs just didn't dehydrate properly, the air cells were still too small at the end of the incubation period. at least that's what I think the problem was. With my last two batches I didn't add water during the second week until the air cells were bigger. Now I have lots of ducklings creating a big mess in their brooder... So cute!