Broody Ducks/good mothers

[kseeley18]

I currently have 2 blue swedish, 1 ancona and 1 black swedish. Do any of these girls make a good mother? 1 blue swedish qnd 1 black swedish are my layers and the ancona and second blue swedish are just not of age yet, i wanted to get some fertile eggs and see if any of these ducks would go broody and take them in, has anyone done this and been successful? I will have an incubator for back up but is it worth a try or should I just incubate without the ducks and not risk it?

 

[sourland]

You can not 'make' them go broody. You will have to wait until they go broody and then get fertile eggs.

 

[kseeley18]

I know I can't make them go broody I'm just wondering if any of these ducks make good mothers and if they go broody? Or if they're not a good breed of domestic duck that is good with mothering. Example I hear muscavoy ducks make great mothers.

 

[Duck Drover]

Hatchery breeds have the broodiness bred out of them for higher egg production since broody hens don't lay when they are sitting or brooding babies. In general the more eggs the breed lays the less likely they are to be broody. We have Australian Spotted ducks because they are the best layers of the bantam breeds (they lay chicken sized eggs) and they are also great mothers. Most breeds that are carried by feed stores are bred for either egg production or meat production, but not for broodiness. It always comes down to the individual birds and their environment, though, as to whether or not they have the opportunity to go broody and take advantage of it if you let them build a clutch. We got Silkies to hatch duck eggs but we have good results incubating them or letting the mama ducks hatch them so we don't use our Silkies the way we anticipated when we started with them.

 

[Amiga]

I know I can't make them go broody I'm just wondering if any of these ducks make good mothers and if they go broody? Or if they're not a good breed of domestic duck that is good with mothering. Example I hear muscavoy ducks make great mothers.

What I have found with my Runners and Buffs is that there are some general rules of thumb, like, domestic ducks don't go broody. And many don't. But there are always a few that don't follow the rules of thumb, like Sechs, Elf, Fünf, and Romy. And now maybe Rowena and Alba.

Those first four are my ducks who have gone broody, full on broody. The rest haven't ever seemed particularly interested in sitting.

So, as sourland says, see if they go broody. If you really want to hatch, I would say you'll need to have an incubator. Of course, my guess is that if you get an incubator, then someone is more likely to go broody.