What went wrong, hatching duck eggs the first time!

[lkistamas]

This was my first time hatching duck eggs in a little giant circulated air incubator , with automatic egg turner. I borrowed my friends incubator and she also gave me all the eggs, various breeds, from indian runnings to mallards.

I put in 42 eggs, at 10 days candling 7 had was not viable. So out of the 35 only 11 hatched. First egg hatched at day 26, others followed at 27, 28, one last one on day 30.
On day 31 one I candled all the eggs, since there was no chirping or peeping. None of the remaining eggs had any movement so I pulled the plug. But when I dissected a few of the eggs they had full grown duckling inside with large egg yolk. What did I wrong? Did I pull the plug too early?

Some background information, the four corners of the incubator had 4 different temperatures, some as low as 35 and the opposite site as high as 39. Humidity was 50-65 % the first 14 days, which now I am thinking was way to high. I also struggled with keeping the humidity higher than 65-70 during lock down, so I had to open the lid to throw in wet sponges and to fetch the 2 day old ducklings as they were running all over the other eggs.

I would love to try again, but I am devastated to lose 24 eggs

 

[casportpony]

Welcome to BYC, I'm so sorry for your losses. I don't have any good answers or advice, but hopefully some of the more experienced hatchers will.

 

[Miss Lydia]

@WVduckchick

 

[WVduckchick]

Good background info!
Since you mention varying temperatures throughout the incubator, I assume you used other trusted thermometers?
Little Giants are known to be a bit off, so never trust the meters on the unit without verifying them.

My suggestions for a future hatch would be a slightly lower humidity to start with. 50-65 probably was a bit high. I like closer to 30-35% Do your candlings and let them guide you on humidity. And if the temps vary that much, maybe rotate the eggs from the warmer to cooler spots every couple of days. You may even consider removing the auto turner and laying the eggs down, and hand rolling them. I lay them in rows, pick up the egg on one end, roll the eggs to the empty position, and replace the first egg on the other end of the row. This way they eventually travel across the whole incubator. 3-5 turns a day is sufficient, if you can manage it.

One other thing... age of the eggs, and health of the parents also play a part, so make sure you have good fresh eggs from healthy parents.