Have anyone ever used a broody chicken to incubate duck eggs? If you have how did it go? Thanks, Ashley
YES! It worked great. The chicken raised the ducks until they got bigger than her. She protected them just as she would have her own chicks. I don't think she knew they weren't chickens...until they got in their little pool! ETA: DH just reminded me that it didn't work as well as I remember. We probably would have had a higher hatch rate if we had kept them in the incubator. Only 3 of 8 hatched. Two of the 8 tried to hatch but dried out and couldn't get out. We have 3 WH babies that made it out.
In my experience when using chicken hens to incubate duck eggs, better hatch rates result when the eggs are misted daily to increase humidity. My mother would sometimes put a slab of sod in the bottom of the nest when she was using chickens to hatch duck or goose eggs. She said it was an old trick from Germany.
I have heard of putting moist soil in the bottom of the broody nest box also, from a book called Hatching and rearing your birds, it is very helpful. It says that soil helps humidity levels or you can also sprinkle some drops of water on the eggs a few times to help. It also tells a story about a hen they used that hatched out them out fine but then the hen turned on the ducklings and began eating their lil webbed feet! By time they found out some ducklings had died, others had to be humanly put down, with only a couple still alive and well. So if you do use a hen be sure to watch them closely to make sure the hen is really a good mom and wont go bad on her lil duckling brood.
Having a broody hen hatch duck eggs worked great for me! She hatched 3 out of 3 eggs and was a fantastic, protective mama! They are just shy of 2 months old now and bigger than Petunia!!
I had 5 hens go broody all at the same time but in different nest areas all my roosters are yound so no fertilized chicken eggs but alot of duck eggs each hen hatched 6-8 ducks and 2 are still on nest Now with 6 more eggs they all hatched their nest and ducklings are healthy and getting big they sleep around the hens since they are bigger than them so overall it worked out great for me.
