How long will a female duck stay fertile? URGENT!

I posted a long time ago in regards to a dog attacking my beloved birds, and a quick update: Pippin was my most precious friend, he was a tiny, shy, beautiful little Cayuga drake. His adoptive brother Merry was killed by dogs leaving him alongside Lily to recover which they did fully, thanks to the support and advice i recieved here, thanks to all! However, shortly after Lily laid her fery first egg she was killed by what we can only assume was a raccoon. Pippin went into a deep depression at her loss (i never realized how deeply a little duck could grieve it broke my heart) i poured all of my energy into making that sweet little duck happy again and finally succeeded in bringing little Penny into his life, they two were love at first sight! However, this past Tuesday a red tailed hawk landed in the backyard and Pippin challenged it, and though this act of bravery gave the hens and Penny a chance to hide, he ended up paying for it with his life.

I have poured so much love and emotion into this sweet little bird that i cannot bear to replace him so i have been frantically saving his and pennys eggs (which i know were fertilized) to try and keep him alove in legacy, but i have two questions.

One, if the eggs were refridgerated for any point of time, what is the maximum amount of time they could have been refrigerated and expect to still be alive (two was only in for about an hour but another two for at least a day maybe more, we didnt realize we were going to be hatching them)

secondly how long will Penny stay fertile? I know that Pippin mated with her Tuesday morning (the day we lost him) so from that point how long can we expect to get fertile eggs (Penny lays usually one egg every night/early morning). I want to save as many of their lil babies as possible

Welcome to the BYC flock! We are glad you joined us!



Sorry about your loss.

You may want to try posting your concern on the duck thread to ask the opinion of those familiar with ducks.

I really don't know anything about ducks but if they, and their eggs, are anything like chickens and their eggs, I would say you may still have luck with your refrigerated eggs. There are people on here that buy fertile eggs from Trader Joe's that have been refrigerated (for longer than yours were) and they are still able to get some to hatch. Their rate of hatch is not as good as unrefrigerated eggs, but they do get some to hatch.

With chickens, fertility can last as long as a month after mating, though fertility will may start to drop off after about 2 weeks.

Good luck!

Welcome to BYC. Glad you decided to join our flock. I'm a chicken person and don't know much about ducks (although I've had a few), but I have to admit that ducklings are the ultimate in cute. Definitely post on our Duck section in Other Backyard Poultry under the Forum at the top of the page and take advantage of our duck experts there. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Good luck with your duck eggs.

I hope she gives you some ducklings from Pippin. BUT, the most important issue is your ducks needs a secure yard with wire cover to keep out predators. Otherwise any ducklings she hatches will probably be snacks for another predator.

Welcome to BYC!

I'm very sorry for your loss. I do not own ducks though I hope to do so in the future, but an hour in the refrigerator would probably be fine for the eggs if moved into the incubator right away. You may have better luck in the ducks section.

Good luck,
LeafBlade

I'm sorry for your losses. Losing a beloved pet is never easy.

Here is a link to get you to the duck forum:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/f/42/ducks
Someone there should be able to help you out.

I saw a post just today about how long chickens stay fertile, but I don't know if it's the same for ducks. With chickens, they are most fertile the first 2 weeks, less on the 3rd week and hit or miss after that. I hope you can get some new ducklings from Pippin.

Thank you all so much! (Didnt realize there was a duck thread whoops:<) The four eggs from.the fridge and the one from this morning are already incubating, so i guess the question then is are there negatives to adding new eggs to the group as theyre laid or will the hatches just be staggered? And from.what ive gathered i can expect Penny to be fertile for about a week or two?

Again thanks so much for advice iill try to figure out how to post to the duck thread, though i wouldnt be surprized if im back again soon (my little brother raises chickens and recently got some younger "hens" including the most precious polish, he named them all after full house characters but weve been having some questions about chicken gender we have a couple of ambiguous ones)

Sorry for rambling thank you all so much!! I appreciate it more than you know! :"")

forfelyx said:

Thank you all so much! (Didnt realize there was a duck thread whoops:<) The four eggs from.the fridge and the one from this morning are already incubating, so i guess the question then is are there negatives to adding new eggs to the group as theyre laid or will the hatches just be staggered? And from.what ive gathered i can expect Penny to be fertile for about a week or two?

Again thanks so much for advice iill try to figure out how to post to the duck thread, though i wouldnt be surprized if im back again soon (my little brother raises chickens and recently got some younger "hens" including the most precious polish, he named them all after full house characters but weve been having some questions about chicken gender we have a couple of ambiguous ones)

Sorry for rambling thank you all so much!! I appreciate it more than you know! :"")

Click to expand...

Just click on the blue link in the post I sent last night to go directly to the duck forum.

Thanks will do!