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Eggs in the incubator!

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Bailey
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« on: April 28, 2011, 07:35:07 pm »

I fired up the incubator and put 10 eggs in this morning. so 33 days from now hopefully i will have a few fuzzy guys runnin around. If anyone has any advise on how this is going to go for me that would be great.
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Bailey
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« Reply #1 on: May 06, 2011, 12:52:23 am »

well I see this post is really stirring up some online chatter! I do have a question on the humidity in the incubator, right now it is around 17 percent humidity, is this a good spot to be or should it be higher.
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kilo69
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« Reply #2 on: May 06, 2011, 08:49:16 am »

Yes much higher...  like 80% or more.

Muscovy are notoriously hard to hatch in a bator...  I know I tried and got to watch my duckling fail to break out of the shell.

Everything is easy until hatching... getting the right mix of humidity and heat is tough in the last week.

Some people recommend misting the eggs once a day to simulate the mother coming back to the nest wet.  ALso keep track of the air sac inside the egg by candling (Shiny a bright light behind the egg so you can see it).  Also in the last week make sure to not open the bator until the hatch is complete or you'll loose most of your moisture and they'll likely fail to hatch.

The air sac should be about 1/3 of the egg in the 4 week if it's less they might not have enough water to live... too much and they won't be able to breathe when they attempt to hatch.

Good luck!!!  I'm happy my mothers are sitting but I hope you are able to hatch out yours.

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Bailey
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« Reply #3 on: July 19, 2011, 12:31:01 am »

well the eggs didnt turn out in the incubator. But  i did manage to get my 3 hens to sit but that didnt turn out so good, the one hen sat on eggs for so long that the eggs went rotten. I cracked a few and there were ducks inside but for some reason they never came out. My other 2 hens were both sitting on 2 eggs and one of them did hatch and i was reel happy until i went out there today and seen the little guy stiff as a board. not sure what went wrong with that little duck so i guess im going back to the drawing board.
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Cathy
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« Reply #4 on: September 07, 2011, 12:31:45 am »

Sorry your post wasn't answered more promptly. 

Yes, Muscovy are incredibly difficult to successfully hatch in an incubator.  I have no advise how to improve the odds, but with waterfowl in general I tend to let the eggs cool at least 1x daily when I rotate the eggs and mist them.  I do not add any other moisture.  I have had great results with ducks like Welsh Harlequin but my Muscovy have never fared well so I just simply stopped incubating them artificially unless it's to rescue a nest.
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The information I have provided in this message is based on my own personal experiences, the experiences of others who have shared their experiences and knowledge with me, and a dash of opinion thrown in for extra flavor.  Your mileage may vary! Shocked)
deano1907
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« Reply #5 on: March 18, 2012, 03:06:53 pm »

oh god ime really worried ive just put 18 eggs in my incubator only on day 3 so 32 left to go,reading this on here makes me thinkime gonna fail already,also it says on here not to lift the bator lid,i can only add water by doing this ive got the brinsea octagon 20 with turning cradle,this is my first time on doing ducks and worried now,HELP Huh
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Gorignak
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« Reply #6 on: March 24, 2012, 09:28:25 am »

Hello all....what a winter....NOT!!!!..... Castor Beans are up a month early.....can it really be corn planting time in mid March?Huh

I have a lot of experience hatching chickens.We hatch 2000-4000 Dark Cornish/Australorp/Ameraucana crosses each spring.....we have 1- 300 egg, and 3-400 egg incubators.... a 300 egg automatic GQF, and three old manual turn Leahy redwood incubators. I have retro - fitted all with accurate thermostats and upgraded fans. We store for short periods and and regularly turn. We set, and candle prior to setting....and candle 3x during incubation. We work hard at following all the rules. We hatch all our ducks in the Leahy redwood incubators. They are on their sides in the trays. Turn 3X daily. Temp is 100 F . Humidity is less controlled by measuring than by weighing trays weekly and getting a weight loss. Too little and we dry a bit....too much and we put in another pan of water. We shoot for 14% loss at hatching time.That gives a good size air cell that lets the duckling move around.

I share your lack of success with Muscovies. ANY HELP OR DISCUSSION WILL HELP US....AND WE WILL FEED BACK ALL INFO THAT WE ACCUMULATE. We have French Production Muscovies.....Young hens, and good drakes. 21% protein feed from day 1.....they grow fast and are laying well now.

WE ARE ABLE TO SET 6-12 EGGS A DAY. We set in 4-5 day batches of 25-50 eggs. We select uniform and evenly shaped eggs, culling the largest and smallest, and any that are thin or misshapen.

SO......anyone with ANY tips or ideas can post here or contact us directly. We will post success and failures regularly.....50 eggs in the incubator yesterday !!!!

Thanks..............Mike
« Last Edit: March 24, 2012, 02:13:01 pm by Gorignak » Report Spam   Logged
deano1907
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« Reply #7 on: April 03, 2012, 02:27:22 pm »

only 16 dys left to hatch candled eggs last night and movement in all 14 what will hatch day bring thats my worry  Sad
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Gorignak
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« Reply #8 on: April 03, 2012, 03:30:43 pm »

So far....so good, maybe. I'll probably expose how little I know by making these observations......but, here goes.

I wouldn't worry about opening the incubator at any time.....even the last few days. Just put some wet sponges in to increase the evaporation.......IMPROVISE....BECOME THE DUCK.
There are timetables as to when to stop turning....use your little duck brain.....what is the signal????You sure can't count to 30 on your little webbed feet....THE SIMPLE ANSWER IS TO STOP TURNING WHEN YOU HEAR THE FIRST INDISTINCT.....FAR OFF PEEP. Just put your ear to the side of the incubator during the last week, and you will hear it. That is the clue to going into hatching mode. I do agree that the hen will leave less after the peeping starts, and she will skip a bath to return promptly.

As for the air cell.....I don't know about water....or air....or whatever else has been speculated about the size of the air cell....but I sure do know that if you have not dumped 14%-19% of the eggs weight .....THE HATCHLING CANNOT TURN IN THE EGG TO DO ALL THAT IT HAS TO DO. It has to break into the air cell and pip out a first hole. Then it has to regroup.This is the scariest part for us, chicks take 2-3 hours.....muds seem to take a full 24 hours sometimes.Then the hatchling has to be able to move and turn and pip around the shell. AND IT NEEDS THE ROOM TO MOVE, THAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE AIR CELL.
I HAVE HAD MORE SUCCESS WITH TOO DRY THAN TOO WET......AND FOR THE RECORD, WE ONLY KEEP THE HUMIDITY AT HALF OR LESS THAN "THE EXPERTS" SAY IS CORRECT.....THAT IS HERE IN HUMID ARKANSAS. Too wet is DOOM....ABSOLUTE DOOM..... It is the reason for most lost hatches. I had a 81 year old incubator collector and restorer tell me that ...HE NEVER PUT ANY WATER IN HIS CHICKEN EGG HATCHES.... We shared one of those moments of clarity when I told him that by trial and error, we were doing the same. No water in chickens....1/2 the humidity in ducks.....MY HATCH RATE IMMEDIATELY INCREASED BY 30%.

I THINK THAT WE GOT THE AGE/RATIO/FEED OF OUR MUSCOVY HENS AND DRAKES RIGHT THIS YEAR. LAST YEAR WE WERE CULLING 30% AT TWO WEEKS AS CLEARS OR STOPPED DEVELOPING.
We just candled 60 eggs and got two clears.....ALL THE REST WERE A TANGLE OF RED VEINS AND DEVELOPING EMBRYO.
I will keep you posted. And, I want to share that it is the last 2-3 weeks when things start to go awry here also. GOOD LUCK EVERYONE
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Gorignak
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« Reply #9 on: April 26, 2012, 08:11:04 am »

 Smiley Smiley Smiley HATCH HAS STARTED. The first hatch has started and is exceeding our expectations. I will update with incubator settings when # 1 finishes......Looks real Good....
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Gorignak
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« Reply #10 on: April 26, 2012, 06:44:38 pm »

 Grin Grin Grin  The count is in on the first hatch. 27 out of 31......WOW...... Good genetics......Good feed ..... 3 to 1 drake/hen ratio.....Old Leahy redwood incubator with circulator fan, 4' tall 2' wide 3' deep.....400 egg capacity......4 large trays..... hand turned only 1 x a day...... ONE STANDARD BREAD PAN OF WATER ON BOTTOM TRAY, LESS THAN 1 QT A DAY EVAPORATION ...... Air vents opened 25% on top and bottom..... 99.8 Degrees throughout the incubation......moved to styrofoam incubator 3 days prior to hatching, with humidity increase ......turbofan in styro incubator and 99.8 degree temp. POPPED LIKE POPCORN...... VERY CLEAN HATCH .....VERY BRIGHT YELLOW...... COULD HOLD ON AND PERCH ON YOUR FINGER IN 4 -6  HOURS..... Very lively, probably the best we have seen.

We will break out the duds tomorrow and report on when they stopped developing.......VERY happy with this attempt. There are about 100 more eggs in the same incubator, and the hens are in another laying cycle. We will set for another couple months or so.
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« Reply #11 on: April 27, 2012, 06:39:27 am »

Final tally on hatch # 1 was 27 out of 33 hatched. Best vigor and appearance that we have ever had. ONE ADDITIONAL piece of information to pass on concerning the incubation.  My last post has all the settings for the incubator.

My son informs me that he spritzed the egg trays each time that he turned them. He used a spray bottle filled with warm water. We keep one styrofoam incubator filled with quart mason jars of water at 100 degrees to use refilling water trays and spritzing the duck eggs. I do not feel that it significantly elevates the overall humidity. It does simulate the hen returning to the nest wet from a bath. Total daily evaporation in a 4' x 3' x 2'  was under one quart of water.... I ADMIT, I DO NOT HAVE THE PRECISE HUMIDITY %..... But, I'll offer an observation. We now have about $200. worth of thermometers, both analog and digital.....AND.....we have several of the humidity monitors, both semi-pro from incubator suppliers, and several from the local hardware store.

WITHOUT EXCEPTION..... WE GET A DIFFERENT READING WITH EVERY SINGLE THERMOMETER AND HUMIDITY MONITOR. What's a person to do Huh Huh Huh

We average....check.....move....recheck.....and try and develop a sense of the overall pattern of temperature. A THERMOMETER THAT IS DIRECTLY UNDER THE COIL IN A STYROFOAM INCUBATOR WILL READ 1-2 DEGREES HIGHER THAN ONE THAT IS IN THE CENTER UNDER A WINDOW. We have trays in our 4 tray incubators that are cooler and warmer.....That is one of my complaints about the GQF incubators. They have very thin walls, and seem to vary more from spot to spot inside. We put 1/2" insulation board on the top and bottom and sides of our GQF to help insulate and even the temp out. The older Redwood/Leahy incubators have a double layer of redwood on all sides. They hold a very even temperature.

I believe that MOST problems in hatching are from the humidity being kept too high....it was the bane of our attempts, and our hatches improved dramatically with the reduction in overall humidity. I also think that the incubating eggs need a lot of fresh air....THIS IS HARD TO DO IN A SMALL, LOW POWER INCUBATOR. The 125 watt element in a styro incubator with a turbofan really struggles to keep the temperature even if you open all the vents. We have 6 vents the size of a quarter on both the top and bottom of the Leahy incubator....WE KEPT THEM ALL OPEN 25% THIS HATCH. But, the Leahy has 400 Watts of tungsten heating element in it !!!

Gotta go.....We will post as hatch #2 proceeds. I will try and come up with a humidity reading gleaned from all the different readings that we get.
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« Reply #12 on: May 08, 2012, 06:51:26 am »

 Grin Grin Grin Our second hatch was better than 90% successful. I am going to do a week of data mining with all the monitors in place. I will try and come up with numbers and meters that are available and easy to use. We have bought digital thermometers off of Ebay for $3 that are uniform and accurate. We have several humidity meters from Wal Mart that are, at least, uniform and in agreement. I will try and provide information on meters that would work in a styro incubator.

My initial opinion is that the need for highly elevated humidity levels is GREATLY exaggerated. We are hatching with very low humidity levels.....the ducklings are clean and rapidly active, their color is excellent. They hit the ground running.

THE OTHER ASPECT THAT I AM FOCUSING ON IS THE AMOUNT OF FRESH AIR THAT IS INTRODUCED DURING INCUBATION. I SUSPECT THAT THE OPENING OF OUR AIR VENTS WIDER THIS YEAR IS A KEY FACTOR IN OUR SUCCESS. This is very hard to duplicate in a small Styrofoam incubator. In my experience, they often smell bad halfway through the hatch from a lack of circulation. We are keeping 6 circular vents on the top and 6 on the bottom, each the size of a quarter, open approximately 25% - 30%. THIS CIRCULATION LOWERS THE HUMIDITY FURTHER !!!

We are as confused by our success as we were by our previous failures. I have ..... TOO MANY .... ducklings now, and lots more eggs in the incubator. They are very hard to sell to people who are not familiar with them. We have over 6o ducklings to sell  Shocked Shocked , and we are just getting started.
« Last Edit: May 08, 2012, 04:49:32 pm by Gorignak » Report Spam   Logged
Gorignak
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« Reply #13 on: May 10, 2012, 04:27:08 pm »

We are having 88% + successful hatch rates. Hatch three is finished and we are swamped with ducklings. We set 2X as many as we wanted, due to past poor hatch rates.


Here is the preliminary information that I have available.
We are using an old Leahy redwood incubator. It has wafer thermostats....an 8" circulator fan......400W of tungsten elements.....4 trays......metal water pan ....3 air vents top and bottom.....pair of accurate mercury bulb thermometers in window on door.Originally the mercury thermometers were for dry and wet bulb readings.

TEMPERATURE.......99.8 to 100 degrees F..... Measured with 2 mercury thermometers and a Brinsea digital incubator thermometer. We also use several, cheap, Chinese digital thermometers. They are little black cubes with a 24" long lead and a probe that we slide into the various air vents. We bought them for $2 apiece on Ebay. They came from Hong Kong. We discarded one of them for gross inaccuracy, but the rest of 6 of them were within 1/10 degree agreement. They can be used to monitor the temperatures in all corners of an incubator......AND believe me, there will be variations. We also have a GQF Analog dial thermometer that is very accurate. We use it to calibrate and monitor the digital thermometers performance

HUMIDITY...... The humidity meters are ACCURITE Brand....from Wal Mart. They have temp and humidity minimum/maximum and current temp and humidity readouts.....About $12. That they are accurate is less important than them being uniform. We put in three of them, side by side to see if they read the same.....NO.....so we begin to record the difference and compensate. They usually disagree about 2 degrees in temperature....BUT....the humidity reading is usually the same. All of our humidity meters read 16%.......YES......we are getting 90% hatches from Muscovy eggs with the humidity in the incubator around 16%. We add about a quart of reverse osmosis water per day to the incubator.

TURNING...... We turn 1X per day.
DURING THE TURNING..... Each tray is pulled out, the eggs are turned....and the eggs are sprayed with a hand pump spritz bottle and warm water. The water is at incubator temperature. There are 3-4 trays, and we complete the turning on all TRAYS ..... WE CLOSE THE DOOR BETWEEN EACH TRAY REMOVAL/TURNING ..... About once a week, a tray is removed and the eggs moved to Styrofoam incubators. The tray is reloaded with a new setting of eggs.THE DOOR IS CLOSED WHILE THE SWITCH IS MADE. The tray of hatching eggs is the top tray. We move the others up a level, AND PUT THE TRAY OF NEW EGGS IN THE BOTTOM POSITION.

HATCHING...... We fill all the cells in the Styrofoam incubator with water. We put a piece of rolled up newspaper between each row of eggs. We spritz the entire clutch.....and don't hesitate to wet the newspaper. We keep all the vents possible WIDE OPEN.....A TURBOFAN IS A MUST...... We remove the hatched ducklings about every 4 hours so that they don't roll the other eggs around.....if you do not put in the newspaper and remove the chicks regularly, it sounds like a billiard parlor in there. The ducks are jostling all the eggs around....NOT GOOD.....They assume a position when they begin to pip and saw out, and we find that there are heavy losses if they are rolled about.

BROODING...... We have built three layers of stacking brooder out of plywood.....2 bulbs per layer. The ducks are given food and water immediately.....BEING DUCKS, we put the 1 Qt jar waterers inside other shallow pans that they can step into and drink.....if put right on the sawdust, they will empty it into the bedding as quick as you can refill it. We are really diligent about containing their duck tendencies to splash and dabble

FEED...... From day 1.....all poultry gets the same feed....chicks......ducklings.....growing.....layers. They also are free ranged on about 10 acres of pasture and woods. Here is the feed mix that we start the ducklings on.

THIS IS MY 1 TON MIX..... About 20.5% - 21.5% protein..........

900 LBS CORN
400 LBS SOY MEAL
200 LBS OATS
300 LBS DDG
75 LBS FISH MEAL
65 LBS CALCIUM
50 LBS ALFALFA MEAL
10 LBS COMPLETE VITAMINS


I HAVEN'T HAD MUCH LUCK PUTTING PICTURES UP HERE....i WILL TRY IN THE FUTURE, AND CONTACT THE FOLKS IN CHARGE TO SEE WHAT i AM DOING WRONG.
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« Reply #14 on: May 22, 2012, 06:58:34 am »

I am going to make this my final post on this thread, and then start another later in the summer to discuss our success/failure.

Hatches are proceeding at an unprecedented rate of success. We had 2 eggs out of 24 that did not hatch on batch #5. We are still setting regularly, and are getting 4-5 eggs a day from the flock. We had tremendous success selling the ducklings. Two people drove over 3 hours each to pick up 60 of them on Sunday....and they were overjoyed to get them !!!!

All the settings in the previous posts are what we are currently using. The ducklings are large, bright, and VERY active immediately upon hatching.

Good luck. I will overview and post our thoughts on incubation and hatching later....I'm going to head over to the eatin' thread and work on our processing skills.....Had Muscovy in our stir fry last night....My FAVORITE meat.
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