Everybody says muscovy are great mothers. We had our third muscovy hatch here today (
). However, we had issues with each of the previous hatches, or more correctly after the hatch, so here is my question. Brownie (my first muscovy hen) had a brood of almost 20 adorable ducklings. They were healthy and adorable, but died within a week because she refused to stay with them. All of them died.
The next hatch, she began to leave them again. After we lost the first one, I penned them all up. The rest did ok after that. Then, when they got bigger, she died protecting them from a dog.
Her protective instinct just kicked in too late. It was a really sad day and the dog went to a new home. Brownie was a special duck. Anyhow, another duck has hatched babies and I am just wondering if Brownie's behavior was typical for muscovy and if I should go ahead and take the babies. Or was Brownie unusual in that way? She just gave them so much freedom so early that they got lost or died. I don't want to lose these cute babies but firmly believe that animals do better raised by mothers. So what does everyone think?



