Broody duck with ducklings

[Jessduck]

My Rouen and mallard both went broody and one duckling has hatched! I have no experience with this and would love some tips! They are still sitting on a full nest so I’m guessing there’s more to come. Do I have to do anything special? The Rouen is keeping the other 3 ducks away from the one duckling that has hatched so far. I have a large fenced in area with lots of room for more ducks so we are excited for our new arrival!

 

[Miss Lydia]

How precious. When I have mama and ducklings or mama and hen I give them their own space from the main flock, mainly because you can always trust drakes and even other adult females if duckling was to get close to them. I have my property set up where fencing and gates can keep them separated until ducklings are usually a couple of weeks old. They are much better able to keep up with mama, and if everyone has seen them through fencing the adults are becoming use to having ducklings around. I still keep my drakes away. My Muscovy drake has always kept a safe distance from mama and ducklings It's just you never know how one will react.

Congrats on the little one it's adorable.

 

[Blue Raptor]

My Rouen and mallard both went broody and one duckling has hatched! I have no experience with this and would love some tips! They are still sitting on a full nest so I’m guessing there’s more to come. Do I have to do anything special? The Rouen is keeping the other 3 ducks away from the one duckling that has hatched so far. I have a large fenced in area with lots of room for more ducks so we are excited for our new arrival!

Mamma knows best! Just let her do her own thing!

 

[N Good]

I just had a broody duck hatch out 6 ducklings last week. So much easier than an incubator and brooder. Make sure they have access to water and food at night the first few weeks (we take away water and food from adults at night to keep the house cleaner). I did separate ours from the flock because we had a broken egg part way through, I'm glad I did though because we have other ducklings we hatched in the incubator that are quite a bit older and we still can't let them in with the flock because the one drake is vicious! Anyways, they're a lot of fun to watch. Oh, transition the mama to crumble so that they can share feed the first few days, then you can out her pellets back in.
Hopefully that all helps, and you'll learn as you go.

 

[Jessduck]

Woke up this morning to 3 more babies!! So excited for our new arrivals. Going to go get duckling crumble and grit today and lots of veggies for the parents

 

[Jessduck]

I just had a broody duck hatch out 6 ducklings last week. So much easier than an incubator and brooder. Make sure they have access to water and food at night the first few weeks (we take away water and food from adults at night to keep the house cleaner). I did separate ours from the flock because we had a broken egg part way through, I'm glad I did though because we have other ducklings we hatched in the incubator that are quite a bit older and we still can't let them in with the flock because the one drake is vicious! Anyways, they're a lot of fun to watch. Oh, transition the mama to crumble so that they can share feed the first few days, then you can out her pellets back in.
Hopefully that all helps, and you'll learn as you go.

We did have a broken egg a week or so ago but I have no experience so I figured it was just an accident. What does a broken egg mean?

 

[Jessduck]

So I finally got near the nest and this is what i found. Unknown when they first pipped. Seems like both moms have kind of abandoned the nest.

 

[Blue Raptor]

So I finally got near the nest and this is what i found. Unknown when they first pipped. Seems like both moms have kind of abandoned the nest.

some of them look like their still going to hatch! Are you sure they're not going back?
if not, your going to have to put a heat source in there.

 

[Jessduck]

I took out the other eggs and put the pipped ones under the heating lamp. The moms aren’t going back to sit on the nest. Hoping to get these hatched and be done!

 

[N Good]

We did have a broken egg a week or so ago but I have no experience so I figured it was just an accident. What does a broken egg mean?

A broken egg can be a lot of things. Ours ended up about 100 yards from the nest. I was out there at the time and heard a commotion, the broody duck and a drake were going at it so I thought he broke the egg (it was completely eaten out). After separating her though she ate another egg, so I'm pretty sure it was her both times, I still don't know exactly why but she successfully hatched out six ducklings.

In the future you will have a higher hatch rate if you only have one mama sitting on a nest of 10-12 eggs.