The Quack Shack

[Supercow]

Egg status?

Out of 24 original eggs,

- 9 did not start
- 4 ducklings doing well
- 2 more might be doing well
- 1 is alive but might not make it
- the rest are gone (some were fully formed but seriously entangled and/or rotated, some were not even fully formed)



It's dispiriting but we need to be honest with ourselves - it seems that in these 2 years we haven't yet learnt something that would reliably lead to good practical consequences.

The success rates in our attempts so far have been:

- 20%
- 80%
- 50%
- 25%

... so, all over the place, with the last 3 using the same temp / humidity / cooling, misting / emergency holes and further manual help approach.

If such huge differences are all on account of the natural variation in what cards you are dealt - what batch of eggs you start with - then it's all a game of chance really.

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

What kind of bator are you using? I think it looks like a Bronzes which I regularly get 80 to 100 percent hatch of fertile eggs. There are always a few not fertilized. Lets put our heads together as to why your hatch rate is so low. One problem may be misting. Not a good idea.

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

Brinsea attacked by spellcheck

 

[Supercow]

Brinsea attacked by spellcheck

Brinsea Maxi 24 Ex.

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

That's the Ferrari of bators so we can rule that out. We can't count non fertile eggs, we all have those. Other than the misting, can you describe your hatching process? Just trying to help.

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

And fee! Free to tell me to f off.

 

[Supercow]

We paid up for the Brinseas exactly with the idea that if something goes wrong, we'll know it was not the machine so there is one less variable we need to account for.

The process is:

- set humidity low like 40-44 % until day 24 or whenever chirping starts (in our first hatch we did 50-55% humidity, air sacs developed super weakly, 20% of ducklings survived, so we're leaning dry)
- temp to 37,5 C
- starting from week 3, until the day above, do the daily cooling for 20 min + misting with a plant sprayer (fine nozzle)
- in the final stage, stop turning, boost humidity to 70%+
- whenever we see an attempted external pip, check with candling where the safe area is (no veins) and enlarge it if OK

The biggest problem we seem to be facing is:

1 - some embryos starting but just not becoming fully formed (giving up in week 3 or so?)

2 - some ducklings, while fully formed, being seriously entangled, almost like tied like in a knot, upside down, etc, unable to find their way out in a good place, eventually dying even if we try opening the egg but are too late (because we waited as not to cause bleeding...)

Regarding 2, I see that as possibly weak genetics? I don't really see how this could be fixed by using a different hatching method.

We noticed that Khakis tend to pip very early (days 23-24...)

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

Ok stop misting that's bad. Daily cooling should' be 10 minutes max. I don't know why else you are having so much trouble. That's a super good bator. Are the little ducklings have their feet over their heads? If so that's genentic. I've faced that before. I wouldn't peel them out until they start stress peeping.

 

[Supercow]

Yes, the ducklings that don't make it tend to be like you said. And they don't even start chirping, they just pass away twisted up like that.

We did manage to save one of them this time.

3 of our 8 lady ducks in the non-related part of the flock came from a bad background (we didn't expect or fully appreciate the situation at that time, being completely new to the duck thing) and that could be where the problematic eggs come from.

This most recent (very bad) batch was not misted, only cooled.

In light of all this I don't understand the good (80%) result that we had last year. We just got lucky?

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

No 80 is regular