I have some ideas, but I wanted to check.
We started with some mallard/rouen/pekin cross eggs and had good success (all five fertile eggs survived), so we decided to try muscovies to keep (instead of sell). We bought a large batch and ended up with 25 (in our still-air hovabator), because we heard they were hard to hatch. I was very surprised that all were fertile when I checked with my cheap LED light every couple days. I watched the air sac for humidity, kept the temperature at about 100 degrees, and turned them by hand frequently (except for one of the weekends). We lost one or two here and there, but at the third week we still had 18 that were clearly alive. However, in the middle of that week, I started seeing problems. I wasn't sure, but it looked like only 7 were still alive. I left them all together just in case. We stopped turning on day 28, and on day 30 we moved them to a hatcher where the temperature and humidity were much less regulated (a bad decision in retrospect, but before then we hadn't lost a single duckling in that hatcher. Well, none hatched--not a single one. I've egg-topsied all but five (I still had a tiny bit of hope for them after candling, but I'll egg-topsy tomorrow), and most of those had died back in that third week, like I thought. One, however, was perfectly formed except for a small yolk sack, and I'm guessing the ones I haven't done yet will be at the same stage.
So, if/when we try again (not until the weather turns decent--we have awful summers), how can we keep this from happening again? I'm pretty sure that the six that were mostly formed died because we weren't careful enough with the hatcher, but I'm not sure about the majority of them. My guess is that I had them too close to one another--I didn't realize they needed to not be touching, so maybe the heat from each other grew too much, even though the thermometer stayed the same? Any other tips?
We started with some mallard/rouen/pekin cross eggs and had good success (all five fertile eggs survived), so we decided to try muscovies to keep (instead of sell). We bought a large batch and ended up with 25 (in our still-air hovabator), because we heard they were hard to hatch. I was very surprised that all were fertile when I checked with my cheap LED light every couple days. I watched the air sac for humidity, kept the temperature at about 100 degrees, and turned them by hand frequently (except for one of the weekends). We lost one or two here and there, but at the third week we still had 18 that were clearly alive. However, in the middle of that week, I started seeing problems. I wasn't sure, but it looked like only 7 were still alive. I left them all together just in case. We stopped turning on day 28, and on day 30 we moved them to a hatcher where the temperature and humidity were much less regulated (a bad decision in retrospect, but before then we hadn't lost a single duckling in that hatcher. Well, none hatched--not a single one. I've egg-topsied all but five (I still had a tiny bit of hope for them after candling, but I'll egg-topsy tomorrow), and most of those had died back in that third week, like I thought. One, however, was perfectly formed except for a small yolk sack, and I'm guessing the ones I haven't done yet will be at the same stage.
So, if/when we try again (not until the weather turns decent--we have awful summers), how can we keep this from happening again? I'm pretty sure that the six that were mostly formed died because we weren't careful enough with the hatcher, but I'm not sure about the majority of them. My guess is that I had them too close to one another--I didn't realize they needed to not be touching, so maybe the heat from each other grew too much, even though the thermometer stayed the same? Any other tips?
Im definetly not an expert, heck i just put my first eggs in the incubator a few days ago! but from the reading i have done, for that many of them to die in one week, something must have gone horribly wrong in the incubator. Maybe the temperature spiked too high at one point and you werent home to notice? That would explain maybe most of them dying and the orders holding on but not making it in the end. Also them not getting turned over a weekend might've caused some problems, but I'm pretty sure it would just cause deformities, not deaths, but someone correct me if I'm wrong. Also how often did you check the readings on the incubator?
