Truma with lockdown - Duck eggs

[IrisJade]

Last hatch i lost a few due to shrink wrapping, The Incubator showed 65% Humidity and the last time i candled the eggs they internally pipped. And then i had a feeling they were dead i ended up opening them to see it was a shrink wrapping issue. It was so confusing even when i upped the humidity settings with just water. Was the water not enough? i have the brinsea mini. I currently have some new ones coming into lockdown i really dont want this to be the same again any advice would be great i thought of adding a sponge to see if that will help but it will always get me worried if the humidity is too much. i always slide abit of card or something to make a vent to balance the humidity.

 

[Susan Skylark]

As long as your humidity is 65% plus you should be fine, and shrink wrapping is not a major cause of death in peri-hatching eggs, most often it is weak or deformed chick (any sort of stress to your early or preincubation eggs can significantly increase your late term death loss and mutant rate: cold, heat, shipping, old eggs, poor turning…). But we see a dead chick and immediately assume shrink wrapping when it is actually something else we can’t see but is actually rather infrequent, just like most quitters never form a blood ring (like 5%). 10% loss at early incubation, late incubation and hatching along with a 5% or less deformity rate is perfectly normal, add stress and you get up to 50% or more dead in egg or failure to hatch and deformities can exceed 10%. My last quail hatch (a whopping six eggs) was 33% each normal, deformity, and dead at hatch due to cold exposure (February in the upper Midwest) while May hatching is 90% hatch rates and 1% deformities. Your problem is not humidity, rather look into your turning and preincubation stressors, and make sure your temp is steady as well.