Well, I think that my female Cocoa has finaly gone broody. She was laying her eggs in the BEST spot in our entire yard for a long time under a hybiscus plant right next to the house. The dogs couldn't get to the eggs and everything was going good. Then one day I told my daughter (5 years old) to go get the eggs for me. They are only allowd to get the chicken eggs. Well she decided she was going to have one of her 5 year old momments and she got all of Cocoa's eggs out of her nest and brought me those instead of the chicken eggs.
After she did this Cocoa decided she wasn't going to lay there anymore. So she moved to the corner of our yard, the worst corner in the entire yard. It is the only corner that doesn't have something over the chainlink fence. Every other place along the entire yard either has very thick vines or a wooden face around it.
She is under a rose bush that has grass growing around it. She made a nice little nest in the grass and started laying there. I didn't really care that she was just laying her eggs there since I thought she wasn't going to be a broody duck. Well about a week ago now I noticed everytime I went outside she was on that nest. I walked over to her and she hissed at me and fluffed up her tail. She never has hissed at me before when she was laying. She was walking really bad around that same time so I thought maybe she was just hurt and scared that i got next to her and she couldn't move. But two days went by and she started walking fine again.
She got off of her nest when I fed them and I looked at the nest and she had 19 eggs in it with a bunch of her down all around them. I thought that if she is going to hatch these eggs I should take a few since I didn't think that having 19 ducklings was going to be the best. So I took away 9 that where along the outside of the pile. Well, two days go by and I fill up there bowl and the male starts doing his hissing and she came running over to the bowl to eat. So I went and looked in her nest and there where 2 more eggs that she had layed so there were 12 eggs. As of today I don't know how many she has, she could have 15 or 16 if she has kept laying since this past weekend.
So my question is should I just let her keep as many eggs as she wants? Did I mess her up by taking some of the eggs away? When do I start the count to when they hatch? Should I keep food and water right by her so she doesn't have to go far to get it? I have been putting a bowl of water next to the rose bush since it is getting hot here, 80+ degrees now. Once they hatch will I be able to move them, I don't want them falling threw the chain link since it is a 4 foot drop on the other side of the fence.
She is under a rose bush that has grass growing around it. She made a nice little nest in the grass and started laying there. I didn't really care that she was just laying her eggs there since I thought she wasn't going to be a broody duck. Well about a week ago now I noticed everytime I went outside she was on that nest. I walked over to her and she hissed at me and fluffed up her tail. She never has hissed at me before when she was laying. She was walking really bad around that same time so I thought maybe she was just hurt and scared that i got next to her and she couldn't move. But two days went by and she started walking fine again.
She got off of her nest when I fed them and I looked at the nest and she had 19 eggs in it with a bunch of her down all around them. I thought that if she is going to hatch these eggs I should take a few since I didn't think that having 19 ducklings was going to be the best. So I took away 9 that where along the outside of the pile. Well, two days go by and I fill up there bowl and the male starts doing his hissing and she came running over to the bowl to eat. So I went and looked in her nest and there where 2 more eggs that she had layed so there were 12 eggs. As of today I don't know how many she has, she could have 15 or 16 if she has kept laying since this past weekend.
So my question is should I just let her keep as many eggs as she wants? Did I mess her up by taking some of the eggs away? When do I start the count to when they hatch? Should I keep food and water right by her so she doesn't have to go far to get it? I have been putting a bowl of water next to the rose bush since it is getting hot here, 80+ degrees now. Once they hatch will I be able to move them, I don't want them falling threw the chain link since it is a 4 foot drop on the other side of the fence.
