Muscovy Incubation - Time to Learn

[Grassman 52]

Started setting eggs in December - hatched 7 ducks over the last week, but am getting a lot of DIS (dead in shell). Chicks are fully formed and just failed to internal PIP. The eggs that do PIP I am having good hatch rates.

Breading stock is all young birds first few months of lay - eggs may have been to cold when gathering due to the weather. This may have weakened the embryos - starting to gather them at 7:30 am each morning. All clears are removed at 10 - 12 days (running about 70% fertile)

Question:
Those of you that do use incubators on Muscovys please share your settings:
Using forced air Dickey cabinet incubator. Setting 20 eggs per week (vertical) for a staggered hatch.

Temp =< 99.5 degrees - trying to ensure no spikes over 99.5
Humidity - was trying the dry method and weighing eggs, but I think it has been running to low - Eggs that hatched lost 16% of their laid weight should have been around 12%
Targeting 25 - 30% humidity then moving to a separate hatcher with high humidity (after internal PIP).
Misting eggs daily.

I am using this time as a learning experence before spring - so please all advice is welcome.

(chickens were so easy compared to ducks

)

Brooding is set-up in my basement

 

[myfinefeatheredfriends]

Are you giving them enough time to pip? From my experience Muscovies can take anywhere from 29-35 days to hatch. Does your basement maintain a steady temperature? I would start raising the humidity BEFORE they pip, not WHEN. The misting is a smart idea and everything else that you're doing looks good.

 

[Grassman 52]

Yes - Temp in basement is steady, but winter air in the Northeast is real dry. I think the humidity was two low during my start up - took "dry Incubation" to literally. Bumped humidity up to 30% - 35% and will keep weighing eggs. Now it's just time until I run through a complete cycle. Set 22 more eggs this weekend have about 80 eggs in the incubator at a time.

when candling the eggs, I can see a change around the air cell - turns brown around 28 days - this is where I believe they are dying.

Where did you set your humidity levels to start?

 

[BantamWhisperer]

Muscovy are a lot harder to hatch than goose, ducks and chicken eggs. Most of mine Die in Shell too.