Incubating Muscovy Eggs Progress

[Blacklotus]

Hello all

I thought I would share my progress of incubating my first ever muscovy duck eggs.
I have 6 eggs bought local, that I'm incubating in a Janoel-12 incubator with an auto turner. So far so good! Temp is stable at 37.5°, I am trying to keep the humidity lower as I read to do that on a thread on this site. So I am only adding 50-60ml of water every 2 days. I am waiting for a hygrometer to arrive in the mail! So hoping the humidity isn't too high.

I am very new to incubating, and I successfully hatched a button quail in a dodgy homemade incubator in the past, but decided after that, that I would buy my first proper incubator, the Janoel-12 is just a cheapy from eBay as I can't afford anything fancy at this stage. But it seems to do the job. If for some reason my incubator fails and breaks during incubation, I plan to set up my emergency homemade one. But I'm hoping this doesn't need to happen!

If anyone has successfully hatched some muscovy's in a bator, please feel free to share your advice as I will need it! I've heard muscovy's are hard to hatch, and usually die within the last week or around hatch time. So I'm not getting my hopes up too high at all, but fingers crossed I have atleast one survivor!

This will be my first update,

Day 4 Candling; you can see the blood island veins starting to form. I am sure all 6 eggs are fertile, but could only get good shots of 4 eggs. Egg #6 looks to be further along than the rest. I'm unsure why.. but you can see veins sprouting out in it. Though I'm not weighing or tracking the eggs and air cells, the air sacs do look like a good size for this early on. I will candle eggs again on day 7.

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[Ren2014]

for you. I've had good luck and bad luck incubating Muscovy eggs. The good luck came when I did nothing but turned them daily and increased the humidity at first internal pip. I was amazed. Here is a great thread to read https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/incubating-and-hatching-muscovy-eggs It is common for eggs to be a day to a few apart so no worries there.

 

[Blacklotus]

for you. I've had good luck and bad luck incubating Muscovy eggs. The good luck came when I did nothing but turned them daily and increased the humidity at first internal pip. I was amazed. Here is a great thread to read https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/incubating-and-hatching-muscovy-eggs It is common for eggs to be a day to a few apart so no worries there.

Thankyou Ren! It was probably a risky choice in choosing Muscovy for my first ever proper incubation, but it was the only ones available that were closer to where I live. I don't mind too much. We all learn somewhere.

Yes I have read the thread many times!! trying to go over everything and see what I'm missing. It's handy information

I got home to find my incubator overheating today, it was a warm day and I have been keeping the incubator wrapped up to stop the motor overworking, which it suggests to do in the manual, but the room was also very warm so it was just too much for the bator. It was at 40.2°, but quickly got temp down and checked the eggs to see if all was okay. 5 out of the 6 eggs are all growing perfectly so far, all with beating hearts, one of them started to form but stopped I think. I don't think it would have stayed at 40.2° for too long as I was only gone for a few hours, but I hope the heat hasn't damaged them somehow...


Day 5

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[Ren2014]

Great pictures! I don't think that short of time at a high heat would damage them. Keeping my fingers crossed for you

 

[Blacklotus]

Day 7 - All 5 eggs look like they are developing great! Can see their tiny little hearts pumping away, and even noticed some babies slightly moving around today. Air cells look okay, but I am still waiting for my hygrometer to arrive! very nervous as to what the humidity has been inside all this time. Next candling pics will be on day 12

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[FoodFreedomNow]

Very exciting! I've only incubated Muscovy eggs (and lots of chicken eggs) to date, but I highly recommend daily cooling and misting after day 10...and I prefer to hand turn 3xday rather than using an autoturner.

I had two broody ducks hatch clutches last spring and summer, so I was able to observe their behavior...they definitely cool and dampen the eggs, and they have amazing hatch rates.

Hope you have a great hatch!

 

[Blacklotus]

Very exciting! I've only incubated Muscovy eggs (and lots of chicken eggs) to date, but I highly recommend daily cooling and misting after day 10...and I prefer to hand turn 3xday rather than using an autoturner.

I had two broody ducks hatch clutches last spring and summer, so I was able to observe their behavior...they definitely cool and dampen the eggs, and they have amazing hatch rates.

Hope you have a great hatch!

Thanks for the advice I will do that.
How do you do your misting? a spray bottle with warm water? And with cooling, do you just leave the lid off the bator for 10mins or so?

 

[Ren2014]

Those veins look great!

 

[FoodFreedomNow]

Thanks for the advice I will do that.
How do you do your misting? a spray bottle with warm water? And with cooling, do you just leave the lid off the bator for 10mins or so?

YVW.

Yep, just take the lid of the incubator off for the cooling period, and fill a spray bottle with lukewarm water.

The schedule I use is as follows:

• Day 10: cool once daily for 10 minutes (mist at the beginning of the cooling period)
• Day 14-lockdown: bump up cooling to 15 minutes (mist at the beginning of the cooling period)
• Once lockdown begins, I cease cooling/misting to keep the temp and humidity stable in the incubator (I've also noticed that broodies seem to stop getting off the eggs and bathing in the couple of days prior to hatch)

 

[Blacklotus]

Okay it's day 12 of incubating today, and as of yesterday, I have had to go dry in the bator, the air sacs have been too small. I measured around the cell yesterday and after checking today the cells have grown the tiniest bit, so will continue with another day of dry and see how they look tomorrow, if all good will add in some water again. All 5 babies are moving around, seem to be growing all the same, and all love to hide! It's hard looking for them sometimes, haha.

Here's some pics, I'm a bit concerned with how they look... it almost looks like all the yolk has stuck to a side of the egg, but the eggs have been turned every 3 hours. So I'm hoping this is normal looking, it's freaking me out! Why does it only take up half of the egg, and not all of it? won't they need the rest of the space to grow? Has something gone wrong in my bator?

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