Ginormous air cells in duck eggs? Something's wrong.

Today is Day 7 of duck egg incubation. Yay! But the eggs look super weird. It's as if a line has been drawn between the developing embryos (yup - all four of them), and something akin to an air cell but not exactly attached to the air cell. The first three pictures are on one egg, and the other pics are me slowly turning a different egg counterclockwise.

Gar!

More info:

I'm using a Janeol12 - automatic turner (on their sides), but I've also been hand-turning them. 38.6º C. Humidity fluctuates because it's a still air incubator. It's not full - there are four eggs in there. Um...I set them the day they were laid, and they were clean, so I didn't wash them. Gah!

ETA: I just took the turner out and put the eggs pointy side down in a cardboard egg carton on a slight tilt. I increased the humidity to 60%. I'm going to try to leave them the heck alone. <-- very hard to do.

Hi Beth,

Interesting situation. I have no experience with eggs yet, but I want to incubate my own someday so wanted to know the answer to your problem.

From what I can find about abnormal air cells, it looks like your eggs' air cell is fine. In the second and third picture I can see the line of the air cell extending into the clear side of your egg in a good shape.

This video shows an abnormal air cell:


My guess would be that the distinct line is from being on its side and the clear side is simply the yet to be used up albumin. As long as you still see healthy blood vessels and a heartbeat, it's still developing.

I don't know if being that distinctly on its side is normal or indicative of a later problem with chick position that would hinder hatching. Maybe a Permie with more experience can confirm or correct.  

Thank you, Amy

Unfortunately, they didn't make it. The air cells were no longer delineated, and one of the embryos developed a blood ring. The light orange/yellow business crept around the eggs and pretty much filled the eggs.

I think a few things happened:

1. I played with the eggs too much. Yup. I picked them up and candled them and opened the brooder too much and was basically impatient and excited.

2. The incubator is not a great piece of equipment. Someone like me (read: impatient/excited) should not be messing around with an incubator that might be a bit iffy about keeping a consistent temp.

3. I have a bargain-basement hydrometer. Nuff said.

Despite it all, I have two eggs in there now. I took out the turner and they are in an egg carton. I have a "Do NOT touch" mental note attached to it. I'm going to leave them alone for 24-48 hours - not even turn them.

I've watched videos where people are very gentle with their eggs. Er...that wasn't me. I wasn't jostling them or anything, but I was probably too rough.

I'll let you know how these two go. And I'm not going to mess with them every day. I'll turn them, but I won't, er, cradle them. I LOVED holding them for some reason.

I'm not trying to hatch a bunch of eggs. If this batch fails, I might buy a more expensive incubator in the future. What I *am* about to do is buy red bulb and blue bulb thermometers. And not play with the eggs!

Found out one thing that was wrong - the incubator was 1.7º C lower than it read. Awesome. Recalibrated. Moving on.

Warning - unsolicited advice coming! Beth, I *really* recommend you follow this link: https://www.vet.cornell.edu/animal-health-diagnostic-center/programs/avian-health/hatching-duck-eggs

Read it, copy it onto your computer and highlight in whatever colour is pleasing to you, the critical parts of each instruction.

Then I'd start a spreadsheet and write down the dates you need to do stuff. The turning 4 times/day is *really* important but you need to do so gently. You do not want to screw up like I did and put an egg accidentally air sack down - sorry pre-duckling! Knowing when to stop turning (sometimes called "lock-down") is equally important.

Consistent temperature is also important - some people are really anal about that and check it for a week with no eggs and 4 different thermometers, but I settled for putting the incubator in a small, central room in the house (a bathroom with no outside walls) and set it's baseboard heater for about 20C to decrease day/night temperature swings. 1.7C too low would definitely have been a problem.

Humidity is also a problem. I did OK last Aug. but this year no matter what I do the humidity keeps fluctuating. I'm aiming for the 55% relative humidity, and am accepting between 55% and 60% and checking approximately 4 times a day. Too much humidity and you can "drown" the ducks, not enough and they may not hatch.

There's no point candling until day 6 for Mallard domestics and 8-9 days for Muscovy. Try to only candle every 4-5 days. I sort by "sure they're good on day 6" to "hmmm... I'm not sure" so I only candle the not so sure ones the extra times. A real mom will leave the nest for food and water, so occasional cooling is actually considered by some people a good thing. I do think the audio clip I made of adult ducks "chatting" which I started playing for the eggs a week before hatch isn't a bad idea - I wanted them to know they were ducks.

I did fairly well last Aug, but I have to admit that this year it seems like we've got some problem that I can't pin down. I'm waiting to see how Messy Mom does with the 8 Khaki eggs under her (she's an experienced Muscovy Mom) that started in the incubator as a fertility test and I tucked them under her when something went wrong with her hatch (I think our oldest Muscovy male has lost fertility - no way to separate birds to test that - too many variables - sigh...)

It sounds like you've got some good ideas of what you need to do to improve your chances. I don't recognize the "turner" you mentioned, but I'm using one that holds the eggs vertically and tilts them back and forth and it seems to do the job. Sideways would seem more natural, but the incubator belongs to a friend and the deal was if I stored her stuff, I got to use it!  Good luck and keep us posted. You can see some of this spring's eggs of mine on the 2020 hatch-a-long thread.

Heres a few tips on what's been working for me. I just finished a hatch, 15 out of 19 eggs hatched . Our best hatch yet

1 I start my inncubator a day early to let the inncubator and turner warm up to 99.5

2. I candle my eggs before putting I to the inncubator. Checking for cracks and to make sure I have the air sack pointing up.

3. I handle the eggs as little as possible. I dont candle again until day 9. On day 9 I remove any umfwrted or dead eggs

4. humidity should be between 40 and 60 percent. Its usually 40 for the first 9 days and 60 for days 10 to 28.

5.  This ones really important.  Its seriously improved our hatch rate. I do the cooling and misting regimen.  From day 10 to day 25.  I open the inncubator once a day for 10 minutes , not letting the eggs cool below 86,  and then mist the eggs and close the inncabor. The humidity will rise to 99 percent and then drop to 40 again over the next few hours. This mimics nature,  The mom will leave the nest daily to feed and bath and then she'll come back wet and sit on the eggs. I think this cooling and misting process might  help keep the membrane inside the shell pliable. Since I started to do this the ducks have hatched after pipping , much quicker.


6. On day 25 I remove the eggs from the turner, add water to the next second reservoir raising the humidity to 60 percent and wait.


I hope this helps , happy hatching.