How to enable my duck to hatch a few eggs...?

[Mashie]

Hi - I've had feral ducks for 10 years but now am trying with domestic. Due to fox and mink my tiny flock was down to one white campbell who has never laid an egg for me (she is 3 years old, a lockdown rescue, I'm told she laid in the past but infrequently). A week ago I acquired a Cayuga drake. Bella laid an egg yesterday in the middle of the run. Today she has made a tidy nest inside the coop (where they are locked at night) and has another egg. I'm very proud!

So... questions please for you kind people - I'd like to hatch a few eggs (we could handle 4 more ducks but preferaby not more).

Assuming these two are mating (her back is muddy), since there has been a male around for a week, when is the first egg that could be fertilised?
(i.e. if she laid an egg today, and first mated a week ago, might it be fertilised?).

Also - how best to leave a few for her to hatch without having her lay 20 eggs before she starts to sit the nest (I've seen it! - one of our feral ducks even successfully raised 21 ducklings but she then promptly died, probably of exhaustion! I don't want 20 ducklings!). I've also seen ducks without a drake sit a nest for weeks with no chance of hatching...

If I take an egg every day will shel keep laying an egg every day? If I leave 4 (numbered!) and then take any new ones daily, will she get the idea and start to sit on them? or does she want to sit on more than that?

(I have a food intolerance for duck eggs so there is no great need for the eggs, although we could give some away and husband can eat them). We have ducks so they can enjoy our pond, but bird lockdown is making that tricky!

Ideally I'd like to have up to 4 youngsters asap so they are a good size by early summer.
Sorry for the very basic qs!

 

[NatJ]

Assuming these two are mating (her back is muddy), since there has been a male around for a week, when is the first egg that could be fertilised?
(i.e. if she laid an egg today, and first mated a week ago, might it be fertilised?).

Yes, it probably is fertilized.

Also - how best to leave a few for her to hatch without having her lay 20 eggs before she starts to sit the nest (I've seen it! - one of our feral ducks even successfully raised 21 ducklings but she then promptly died, probably of exhaustion! I don't want 20 ducklings!). I've also seen ducks without a drake sit a nest for weeks with no chance of hatching...

If I take an egg every day will shel keep laying an egg every day? If I leave 4 (numbered!) and then take any new ones daily, will she get the idea and start to sit on them? or does she want to sit on more than that?

(I have a food intolerance for duck eggs so there is no great need for the eggs, although we could give some away and husband can eat them). We have ducks so they can enjoy our pond, but bird lockdown is making that tricky!

Ideally I'd like to have up to 4 youngsters asap so they are a good size by early summer.
Sorry for the very basic qs!

(I'm basing this mostly on my knowledge of chickens, which are of course similar but not quite the same.)

First, there is no guarantee that she will go broody at all. Some do, some don't.

I don't know enough about ducks to be entirely sure what triggers broodiness in them. If it's caused by the number of eggs in the nest, you could add a bunch of fake eggs to the nest, and maybe that would encourage her to go broody sooner rather than later. If she actually goes broody, you could take out the fake eggs again, leaving just the real eggs for her to focus on. (Adding fake eggs to the nest shouldn't cause any harm, I just don't know whether it helps either.)

While she's laying eggs but not broody, I would suggest you check each day, and write the date on each egg, so you know how old each one is.

There are several ways to manage the number of eggs in the nest:

You could leave the most recent 4 eggs in the nest, and each tim she lays a new one you take away the oldest one, continuing either until she goes broody or until you give up. Fresher eggs have a better chance of hatching, which is why you would remove the older ones and leave the newest ones.

You could leave all the eggs in the nest until she starts setting, then take away all but the correct number of recently-laid eggs.

You could take away the real eggs each day, to store them safely in your house, and leave fake eggs in the nest. Then when she actually goes broody you can put the correct number of real eggs in the nest, and remove the fakes. If you do this, you might just keep the 4 or 5 freshest eggs at any given time, and let someone eat the older ones. There's no point in carefully saving up 20 eggs if you know you won't let her sit on that many.

Ideally I'd like to have up to 4 youngsters asap so they are a good size by early summer.

Do consider whether you will have a problem with male/female ratio, and have a plan for extra males if it becomes a problem. Eggs "should" hatch about equal numbers of males and females, and that's close to accurate for large numbers, but with just 4 eggs it's pretty common to have a 3/1 split or even 4 of one gender (which is good or bad depending on which gender predominates!)

 

[Mashie]

Yes, it probably is fertilized.


(I'm basing this mostly on my knowledge of chickens, which are of course similar but not quite the same.)

First, there is no guarantee that she will go broody at all. Some do, some don't.

I don't know enough about ducks to be entirely sure what triggers broodiness in them. If it's caused by the number of eggs in the nest, you could add a bunch of fake eggs to the nest, and maybe that would encourage her to go broody sooner rather than later. If she actually goes broody, you could take out the fake eggs again, leaving just the real eggs for her to focus on. (Adding fake eggs to the nest shouldn't cause any harm, I just don't know whether it helps either.)

While she's laying eggs but not broody, I would suggest you check each day, and write the date on each egg, so you know how old each one is.

There are several ways to manage the number of eggs in the nest:
10
You could leave the most recent 4 eggs in the nest, and each tim she lays a new one you take away the oldest one, continuing either until she goes broody or until you give up. Fresher eggs have a better chance of hatching, which is why you would remove the older ones and leave the newest ones.

You could leave all the eggs in the nest until she starts setting, then take away all but the correct number of recently-laid eggs.

You could take away the real eggs each day, to store them safely in your house, and leave fake eggs in the nest. Then when she actually goes broody you can put the correct number of real eggs in the nest, and remove the fakes. If you do this, you might just keep the 4 or 5 freshest eggs at any given time, and let someone eat the older ones. There's no point in carefully saving up 20 eggs if you know you won't let her sit on that many.


Do consider whether you will have a problem with male/female ratio, and have a plan for extra males if it becomes a problem. Eggs "should" hatch about equal numbers of males and females, and that's close to accurate for large numbers, but with just 4 eggs it's pretty common to have a 3/1 split or even 4 of one gender (which is good or bad depending on which gender predominates!)

thanks so much that all sounds super sensible...
understand about small numbers giving poor results... our feral ducks died out because for the last 5 years there were 10 males and one female.

 

[Luv Ducks]

I have a Mallard duck that throws off mainly drakes in her ducklings. Out of her first clutch of 11, only 2 were hens, the rest all drakes. The next clutch had almost all drakes also so she or her mate must carry the drake gene more than the hen gene. In humans the Male determines the sex of the baby I have always heard but I am not sure how it works in the Duck world. If so then my Drake is the one that likes only Sons, lol.

 

[New duck mommy 2021]

Let her lay her clutch and once and once she stops laying and starts sitting I would remove all but 4 eggs

 

[NatJ]

In humans the Male determines the sex of the baby I have always heard but I am not sure how it works in the Duck world.

In ducks, chickens, and other birds it is the female that determines the sex of the offspring.

You are right that in humans it's the male that determines the sex of the offspring.

In case anyone's interested in more details:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZW_sex-determination_system
(used by birds)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_sex-determination_system
(used by humans and most other mammals)

 

[New duck mommy 2021]

In ducks, chickens, and other birds it is the female that determines the sex of the offspring.

You are right that in humans it's the male that determines the sex of the offspring.

In case anyone's interested in more details:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZW_sex-determination_system
(used by birds)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_sex-determination_system
(used by humans and most other mammals)

That’s interesting
I Have used the same mom and dad for many batches
1- 6 eggs 4 girls 2 boys.
2-6 eggs 3 girls 3 boys
3- 6 eggs 4 girls 2 boys
4- 4 eggs 2 boys 2 girls
5- 7 eggs all 7 boys
6- 10 eggs 8 boys 2 girls
6-6 eggs 4 girls 2 boys
Last batch was two drakes involved and had 9 babies 7 girls 2 boys
Really no idea why it changes so much with the same girl
She was my only girl till some of those hatched and they didn’t lay eggs till later
So no possibility on mixed eggs

 

[Luv Ducks]

In ducks, chickens, and other birds it is the female that determines the sex of the offspring.

You are right that in humans it's the male that determines the sex of the offspring.

In case anyone's interested in more details:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZW_sex-determination_system
(used by birds)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_sex-determination_system
(used by humans and most other mammals)

Thanks, that is good to know. Now I know that if I hatch out eggs from my other Hens from my Drake they will not possibly be almost all drakes.

 

[NatJ]

That’s interesting
I Have used the same mom and dad for many batches
1- 6 eggs 4 girls 2 boys.
2-6 eggs 3 girls 3 boys
3- 6 eggs 4 girls 2 boys
4- 4 eggs 2 boys 2 girls
5- 7 eggs all 7 boys
6- 10 eggs 8 boys 2 girls
6-6 eggs 4 girls 2 boys
Last batch was two drakes involved and had 9 babies 7 girls 2 boys
Really no idea why it changes so much with the same girl
She was my only girl till some of those hatched and they didn’t lay eggs till later
So no possibility on mixed eggs

I've seen it expressed as "randomness is clumpy."
If something is really random (like flipping a coin or gender of chicks) you will sometimes get clumps of just one or just the other.

If you're bored and want to test it, you can literally flip a coin a bunch of times and make a note of what you get-- sometimes you'll get a fairly even mix of heads and tails, and sometimes you'll get quite a clump one way or another.

The more samples you've got (chicks or coin flips), the closer it usually comes to an even number, except when there is something that actually makes it uneven. I've read a few things claiming that hens (chickens) are more likely to produce male vs. female eggs in some conditions (things like amount of stress, male/female ratio in the flock, fat hens vs. skinny hens, something peculiar to one hen vs. another) No-one's yet found a practical way to get very many extra females, but minor variations can look much bigger when you're got a small sample size (like getting 3/3 vs 4/2 in a batch of six. 3/3 is even numbers, 4/2 is twice as many of one gender as the other.. Giant difference in percent, but really only one baby that was the other gender.)

I notice you've got 2 batches that are very boy-heavy, one perfectly even, and three that are girl-heavy but small enough in total number that there are overall more boys than girls. So it may be shifting around based on things that changed from one year to another, or it might just be random variation making things that look like patterns but really aren't.

 

[New duck mommy 2021]

I've seen it expressed as "randomness is clumpy."
If something is really random (like flipping a coin or gender of chicks) you will sometimes get clumps of just one or just the other.

If you're bored and want to test it, you can literally flip a coin a bunch of times and make a note of what you get-- sometimes you'll get a fairly even mix of heads and tails, and sometimes you'll get quite a clump one way or another.

The more samples you've got (chicks or coin flips), the closer it usually comes to an even number, except when there is something that actually makes it uneven. I've read a few things claiming that hens (chickens) are more likely to produce male vs. female eggs in some conditions (things like amount of stress, male/female ratio in the flock, fat hens vs. skinny hens, something peculiar to one hen vs. another) No-one's yet found a practical way to get very many extra females, but minor variations can look much bigger when you're got a small sample size (like getting 3/3 vs 4/2 in a batch of six. 3/3 is even numbers, 4/2 is twice as many of one gender as the other.. Giant difference in percent, but really only one baby that was the other gender.)

I notice you've got 2 batches that are very boy-heavy, one perfectly even, and three that are girl-heavy but small enough in total number that there are overall more boys than girls. So it may be shifting around based on things that changed from one year to another, or it might just be random variation making things that look like patterns but really aren't.

The one with all boys was done at the school and she used my turner where as I hand turn mine
I had thought maybe that was the issue but maybe just bad luck
I have 10 eggs under that mom now but not all are hers as my other ducks now lay so I won’t be able to test like I was before