Incubating Swan Eggs

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From the City of Lakeland Parks and Rec. They have a large population of swans and my animal hospital cares for them. I'm happy to report we successfully incubated 3 Australian Black swans last month. I'm not sure where you could purchase eggs. Good luck!
 
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I'm a ways off of owning swans but I do like them and thought I'd ask a few questions. How many eggs does a pair lay? Do they lay more than once? When are they mature enough to lay eggs? I hope one day to have a variety of waterfowl with ducks, geese, and swans but seeing as swans are so expensive I'm guessing they don't lay all that often. Final question, do they hatch their own eggs or is it necessary to incubate them? From reading this thread it sounds more like a fun experiment. Thank you!:D
 
Hey folks, I know it's been quite sometime since this thread has been active, but I could really use the advice from experienced swan owners!
I've recently taken on a volunteer position helping a friend at a local bird sanctuary. The old owner died, my friend with no idea how to care for birds comes to me since I have chickens and peafowl. They have peafowl, pheasants and black swans.
The problem herein is that they have an older mated pair, probably nearing 10 years of age or older, that have only successfully hatched babies once. They hatched 3, one died, and one has since injured it's wing and is crippled. The 2 survivors are about 2-3 years old now and though never professionally sexed, it's suspected the cripple is male and the other female. The daddy swan seems to pick on the cripple a lot.
This year over the course of 2 weeks, 3 eggs were laid. That was it. The idea was try to and get a viable mate for the not cripple and sell off the rest of the swans to raise money for the sanctuary. I set the 3 eggs in my incubator without any idea on how to do this and just followed some loose guides I found online. It has been 33 days and I am on my last egg (2 were clearly bad and when I broke them they looked like they weren't even fertile). Luckily when I candle the air sac looks good and there's a nice dark spot surrounded by veins and it looks like it moves, so I'm assuming it's fine.
Now, here are my questions.
First and foremost, when do I go into lock down on this egg?
Second, is it possible that considering the age of the breeding pair that they have slowed down laying or lost fertility?
Third, is it true I can only keep one pair or there will be fights? If so, should I be considering rehoming the old breeding pair at this point?
Is breeding between siblings or parent/child OK for a few generations until I find unrelated swans to replace them? If I separate the older pair will the father pair and mate with his daughter?
Oh last question, has anyone pinioned their own swans? We don't exactly have a capable exotic bird vet in the area...
Sorry so many questions! I'm so new to this!
 
Last edited:
DragonEggs said:
Hey folks, I know it's been quite sometime since this thread has been active, but I could really use the advice from experienced swan owners!
I've recently taken on a volunteer position helping a friend at a local bird sanctuary. The old owner died, my friend with no idea how to care for birds comes to me since I have chickens and peafowl. They have peafowl, pheasants and black swans.
The problem herein is that they have an older mated pair, probably nearing 10 years of age or older, that have only successfully hatched babies once. They hatched 3, one died, and one has since injured it's wing and is crippled. The 2 survivors are about 2-3 years old now and though never professionally sexed, it's suspected the cripple is male and the other female. The daddy swan seems to pick on the cripple a lot.
This year over the course of 2 weeks, 3 eggs were laid. That was it. The idea was try to and get a viable mate for the not cripple and sell off the rest of the swans to raise money for the sanctuary. I set the 3 eggs in my incubator without any idea on how to do this and just followed some loose guides I found online. It has been 33 days and I am on my last egg (2 were clearly bad and when I broke them they looked like they weren't even fertile). Luckily when I candle the air sac looks good and there's a nice dark spot surrounded by veins and it looks like it moves, so I'm assuming it's fine.
Now, here are my questions.
First and foremost, when do I go into lock down on this egg?
Second, is it possible that considering the age of the breeding pair that they have slowed down laying or lost fertility?
Third, is it true I can only keep one pair or there will be fights? If so, should I be considering rehoming the old breeding pair at this point?
Is breeding between siblings or parent/child OK for a few generations until I find unrelated swans to replace them? If I separate the older pair will the father pair and mate with his daughter?
Oh last question, has anyone pinioned their own swans? We don't exactly have a capable exotic bird vet in the area...
Sorry so many questions! I'm so new to this!
Click to expand...
did you become successful with your black swans? I rescued a broken necked week old cygnet and she is now three years old and is so lonely. i'm looking for an egg as she has had two clutches of unfertilized eggs and it breaks her heart when she realizes they are not alive. :(
 
The person you are quoting hasn't been active since 2019. I'd advise looking for a mate for her through somewhere like softbills.com or browsing Craiglist or some other places to see if you can find a mate for her.
 

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