Why is there such a low hatch rate?

[Little Red Birds]

I have discussed this with some other breeders of D’uccles that are porcelain in variety and they all say that the hatch rates are really low. In my (minimal) experience, all my hatched had about half infertile, 1/4 develop and die halfway through, and 1/4 actually pip. I’ve only ever had one survive past 24 hours though. Any thoughts on why this could be? I love these birds and their temperaments and I honestly prefer them to the Millies.

 

[Mosey2003]

If you're going to do a project anyway, this would be a good time to really do some thorough experimenting if your friend will let you.

Factoring out incubation and diet issues, what I would do is:
1. Single breed them, and mark all the eggs. Legband or otherwise mark the hens with numbers/colors, and mark the eggs from each hen. Set up a small pen for each hen and rotate the rooster amongst them every 2-3 days.
2. Track fertility - any hens have no eggs develop? Less than 25%? More than 75%?
3. Of the ones that develop, then track which ones die early, which ones die late, and which ones hatch successfully.

Armed with the above info, you could focus on only setting from fertile hens that produce viable offspring. Further along, you could branch out into putting the sire over his daughters and the cockerel of best type over his mother/aunts and then track it all again. Given enough time and diligence, this would at the very least tell you much more about what issues are happening, and at best could really increase fertility and hatchability over a few generations.

 

[BreanneRN]

There is a thread on here titled "d'Uccle color genetics" that goes on for 49 pages that discusses a viability problem with this bird and the lavender gene that causes the porcelain color, so you are not the only one... I would give you a link to it, but I don't know how to link on this site, but if you do a search for that title you will bring it up. It gets technical, but might help you understand a lot of what goes on with breeding these birds... I haven't read the whole thing, but might at some point. You might give it a read.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

I am confused... ????)

The thermometers and hygrometers are often not correct in incubators and they need to be recalibrated. That's what @Texas Kiki is saying.

 

[Little Red Birds]

The thermometers and hygrometers are often not correct in incubators and they need to be recalibrated. That's what @Texas Kiki is saying.

Thank you for helping clear it up!

 

[Kiki]

The thermometers and hygrometers are often not correct in incubators and they need to be recalibrated. That's what @Texas Kiki is saying.

This.



Did you buy a separate thermometer and humidity gauge and calibrate them both?

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

If only half are fertilized to begin with that is the place to start.....determining the cause for low fertility can be a process of elimination. How old are the breeding birds? M/f ratio? Feed? Environment?

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

View attachment 1804381
I ordered 24 from a breeder in Florida and of them only one survived (Cleatus Pictured above). I have talked with a local breeder who has AMAZING Millies and only does a few porcelains. He says it’s because they are hard to hatch... Right now he isn’t hatching anything because of show season and he has no hens and roos together. I was more or less posting this thread to see if anyone knew why they are. Thank you!

Well, yes, it would be hard to hatch infertile eggs......

 

[Little Red Birds]

I talked with my poultry leader just a moment ago and she has some interesting theories... like maybe since there aren’t that many porcelains, they could be inbred too much or for the sake of still having them breeders used stock with bad fertility.... there is just too many things that could be happening!!

 

[BreanneRN]

Well, some breeds are just not as vigorous as others... Possibly there is something genetic related to this color variety that causes this? Perhaps that Porcelain? gene is carrying something along with it that creates non-viability. In horses, the overo paint gene (a recessive) can lead to an all white off-spring that always dies because of digestive problems... I guess though the people to ask would be hatcheries and others who raise this variety. One way to get a hint would be to see how much hatcheries are charging for the little fellows. The more they cost, the harder they are to produce, generally.