So here is the story.
I have three female Muscovies. When I lost my other two females a few weeks ago, I decided to let one of my girls hatch out a batch of eggs. I brought three eggs back out from the house and made a little nest area in the coop and placed the three eggs in it. The two of my females who were sisters were both very excited and took turns sitting on the eggs throughout the day. One of them laid a couple more in the nest over the next couple of days and was sitting on the nest more than her sister.
Then my other female who definitely has more of the wild gene discovered the nest left for a short time and immediately started setting on it and claimed it for her own. No moving her, she became quite vicious. So I ended up separating the nest and letting the female who had already laid two in that nest have one nest and my wild girl have the other nest.
At this point I was happy to not have my third female go broody because she is very tiny and I worried that a 35 day sit would really take it's toll on her body. She was not laying at that this point and my other two girls were. But as life would have it, she started laying again and found a nice protected spot in the run and laid a couple of eggs and started building a nest.
Now in truth I would be happy for my two sisters to be the moms simply because they do not hurt me if I touch them and I know that they will allow us to touch the ducklings and since we want to be close to the couple ducklings that we choose to keep we will want to touch them from day one. With my wild girl there will be no touching the ducklings without getting hurt.
So my questions really is this. My little girl has laid 8 eggs in her nest and just today is looking like she is ready to set. My plan is to now sneak half of the clutch out of the wild girls nest and give them to my little girl and take all 8 of her eggs in. This will put all three of my girls hatching out their clutches at the same time. And my little girl will only have to set for 3 weeks instead of 5. They will all get to be mother's but only a few of them will belong to my wild girl and we should be able to handle the rest of the ducklings without too much complaint.
Also, between the 2 nests that are 2 weeks along we have 12 eggs. The one sister is sitting on 5 and the wild female is sitting on 7. I was going to leave her 3 and move 4 to my little girl's nest once I remove her eggs. I absolutely don't want to keep the 8 and allow them to start to develop. We only want to keep 2, so if all 12 make it we currently have 10 two rehome.
I know I shouldn't have let my little girl continue to lay, but I felt so bad for her being the only one not allowed to have babies. Plus she was my first one to start laying in the spring and has been my most determined to go broody all along.
What are your thoughts? Am I setting myself up for failure by trying to take her 8 away and splitting my other girls batch? Any other suggestions?
I have three female Muscovies. When I lost my other two females a few weeks ago, I decided to let one of my girls hatch out a batch of eggs. I brought three eggs back out from the house and made a little nest area in the coop and placed the three eggs in it. The two of my females who were sisters were both very excited and took turns sitting on the eggs throughout the day. One of them laid a couple more in the nest over the next couple of days and was sitting on the nest more than her sister.
Then my other female who definitely has more of the wild gene discovered the nest left for a short time and immediately started setting on it and claimed it for her own. No moving her, she became quite vicious. So I ended up separating the nest and letting the female who had already laid two in that nest have one nest and my wild girl have the other nest.
At this point I was happy to not have my third female go broody because she is very tiny and I worried that a 35 day sit would really take it's toll on her body. She was not laying at that this point and my other two girls were. But as life would have it, she started laying again and found a nice protected spot in the run and laid a couple of eggs and started building a nest.
Now in truth I would be happy for my two sisters to be the moms simply because they do not hurt me if I touch them and I know that they will allow us to touch the ducklings and since we want to be close to the couple ducklings that we choose to keep we will want to touch them from day one. With my wild girl there will be no touching the ducklings without getting hurt.
So my questions really is this. My little girl has laid 8 eggs in her nest and just today is looking like she is ready to set. My plan is to now sneak half of the clutch out of the wild girls nest and give them to my little girl and take all 8 of her eggs in. This will put all three of my girls hatching out their clutches at the same time. And my little girl will only have to set for 3 weeks instead of 5. They will all get to be mother's but only a few of them will belong to my wild girl and we should be able to handle the rest of the ducklings without too much complaint.
Also, between the 2 nests that are 2 weeks along we have 12 eggs. The one sister is sitting on 5 and the wild female is sitting on 7. I was going to leave her 3 and move 4 to my little girl's nest once I remove her eggs. I absolutely don't want to keep the 8 and allow them to start to develop. We only want to keep 2, so if all 12 make it we currently have 10 two rehome.
I know I shouldn't have let my little girl continue to lay, but I felt so bad for her being the only one not allowed to have babies. Plus she was my first one to start laying in the spring and has been my most determined to go broody all along.
What are your thoughts? Am I setting myself up for failure by trying to take her 8 away and splitting my other girls batch? Any other suggestions?
Listen do what you want with those eggs as long as they have some to sit they won't care. I have 3 broody Muscovy right now and they haven't had eggs under them for over 3 weeks and they are still sitting just like they do. 
haha! Good one, but I don't want snake eggs anywhere near me.
