Advice on keeping ducklings

[christinesahyoun23]

Hello all,

I need some advice on whether I should keep the ducklings, all, or if any at all.

Some background:
I have two pekin ducks (a drake and a hen), and we incubated some of their eggs. 3 weeks ago, 3 eggs hatched!!! So now we have 3, 3 week old ducklings. But, Daisy continued to lay eggs so we let her sit on them. I had plans to take the eggs out when they were close to hatching, however, I was too late!

So now we have about 9 ducklings (and counting) that hatched underneath Daisy and most of them appear to be fully dry. Now, I would love Daisy to keep all her ducklings, but because I have to embark on emergency travel in the next few days and I also do not have the space / capacity to keep them all, what should I do?

If I take away all the ducklings underneath Daisy, how will she react? Will she be in distress? I feel bad just taking them away for her so I can allow her to keep a few. I go near Daisy, she has let me reach my hands out to the ducklings with no problem, so I am guessing it shouldn't be hard to take some away if needed?

I know I created this issue by letting them (unintentionally) hatch underneath her, so any advice is appreciated.

 

[Jenbirdee]

she’ll be sad but she’ll get over it. I let a broody chicken of mine hatch some duck eggs last year, and I had to take the babies out quickly because she was accidentally crushing some of the others as they were hatching so I put her back with the ducks and chickens without her babies and she did just fine. The others were a little bit mean to her, which is normal because she was missing for a while. but she was fine and she was looking around for her babies for about a week, but she was fine.
I always wondered about people who sell the babies right out from under the mamas, but they survive. It’s only a temporary sadness we have to do what’s best for all involved.

 

[christinesahyoun23]

she’ll be sad but she’ll get over it. I let a broody chicken of mine hatch some duck eggs last year, and I had to take the babies out quickly because she was accidentally crushing some of the others as they were hatching so I put her back with the ducks and chickens without her babies and she did just fine. The others were a little bit mean to her, which is normal because she was missing for a while. but she was fine and she was looking around for her babies for about a week, but she was fine.
I always wondered about people who sell the babies right out from under the mamas, but they survive. It’s only a temporary sadness we have to do what’s best for all involved.

Thank you for the advice!! I'll work towards letting most ducklings go to new owners, she can keep some ducklings