Help! First time worry wart wants ducklings!

[Doro]

Hello! I'm brand new to this forum. We've had ducks for a few years now but have a duck sitting on a nest for the first time so my ignorance is stressing me out!! We first noticed one of our girls (Penny) decide to sit on the nest on April 14th. She has been a great and dutiful mama-to-be and so we have been trying to stay out of her way as much as possible. This morning I noticed that she had moved all but 4 eggs out of the "egg box" but very carefully and built a new nest (so she didn't just roll them away and ignore them). At first she was sitting on the new nest so I didn't worry too much, thinking I could sneak the other 4 into the new nest or worst case scenario losing 4 wouldn't be that bad, but now I went out and she is just sitting on the 4, leaving all of the others un-sat-on (lol). So, does anyone know what the heck she is doing? And what I should do? I don't want to lose all those babies!

 

[Doro]

This is a picture if that helps, you can just see Penny's head sticking out as she yells at me to get away from her babies. Getting more and more nervous the longer she is off the nest. It's a warm day, but not THAT warm.

 

[Doro]

Well I guess I won't be sitting at the cool kids table.


Looks like my problem has been sorted out. Penny spent the day going back and forth between the two nests. Right when I was about to pull out the big guns (the slip-n-slide) to lure her away so I could combine the nests, one of our other females who hasn't been acting broody at all decided to lend a hand and sit on it. Hopefully she keeps it up for another week!

 

[Kleonaptra]

Ducks - very good mumma ducks I should say - will manage their eggs this way, giving the best of their attention to the most viable eggs. How they know which ones, I don't know, but it seems like you have a VERY good mumma there. Good luck, and I hope to see some pics of her young ones!

 

[Doro]

Thank you for your response! I will for sure post some pictures when we get some babies!! Fingers crossed!!

 

[Kleonaptra]

Yup.. Fingers crossed! Try not to stress.. Its more than likely it wont be perfect, but hopefully you get a few babies and learn a lot. I have a group of pretty terrible forgetful mummas, so to save heartache I collect eggs every morning, and if I want babies I store the eggs until I have a good set and incubate. I always let my beautiful Muscovy Regina try and brood but she hasn't hatched anything yet!

 

[Doro]

Well this morning (day 26, we think) I saw Penny off her nest so I took the opportunity to check it out. There was one egg that from its position looked to have been smashed a bit. Picked it up and could see a perfect little beak, but it was dead. I stared at that baby for a long time to see if I could see breathing and gently touched it trying to make 100% sure it wasn't just asleep. Our older and clutsy duck accidently smashed an egg last week but it turned out to not have even been fertilized so I kind of was wondering if any of them were. So hard to see a perfect little duckling in there that didn't make it.

 

[Doro]

Well I took a peek today (28!) while Penny was eating breakfast, and heard my first little peep and saw a little duck bill poking through! I am so anxious and stressed out! I just really hope Penny knows what she is doing! She rolled an egg out last night that turned out to be rotten and it cracked. Uugggg!!! So gross. Never smelt anything like that before, lol. Keep your fingers crossed for me!!

 

[tmorgan46]

Congrats on joining the first time to hatch club!! We're in roughly the same situation. One of our youngest ducks turned out to be the best momma. Initially we collected a bunch of eggs, got an incubator and gave that a try. None of the ducks had gone broody yet and we thought it was a good course of action to see how we did. Out of the 25 eggs we started with, we went into the last week with 12 viable eggs still candling good. On day 30, Uno joined the world. His (I think he's a drake, spouse thinks different) name is fitting. At day 40 we gave up. When we candled the remaining 11, all of them were perfectly developed and ready to hatch. But all expired. That was tough. We also broke open a goose egg that one of the girls had been sitting on. Rotten as the day is long and THAT was not cool!! I'm just glad we did it outside and not inside!! The smell is not friendly at all!! A day or two later, Blondie, the young momma duck, hatched five little cuties. Since then, we have gotten three to hatch out of the incubator and by our calculation, the eggs four other ducks are sitting on should start hatching just about any day. We'll be over run if they have more than a few each hatch!!

 

[Doro]

I have zero experience but that membrane(is that what I call it) looks very dry??!! Just turned on the sprinkler to lure mama away and try and get her wet to transfer moisture to eggs...worked for about two seconds. Do I just need to chill out and stay away?