Broody Khaki Campbell

[littlehousefarm]

Hi, I'm a year into raising backyard chickens and ducks and one of my duck hens (Khaki Campbell) has gone broody. I'm completely fine with her sitting and doing her thing. However she is sitting on a clutch of at least 30 eggs. Is this normal? I have one other KC female and Pekin female and KC Drake. Both KC hens have taken turns sitting on the eggs. I candled two this morning and things are looking good. Unfortunately she was quite unhappy with me and tried to strike me.So I thought it best to leave her be for now. She has been sitting for 2 weeks straight with small breaks for food and water. Any advice on what to do if the eggs on the bottom hatch because they are under quite a few eggs. Will she dig them out or do I need to go through and candle all the eggs?

 

[sourland]

Wow, that's more eggs than she can effectively brood. I would wait until she leaves the nest and then candle the eggs. Any 'clears' I would remove, and I would try to get an incubator to take those eggs that showed only slight development. Generally on a staggered hatch the hen will leave the nest about 48 hours after the first duckling hatches.

 

[littlehousefarm]

How many eggs should she be sitting on for a successful hatch?

And if I take eggs away, will that make her disinterested in sitting or will she be okay? Or is it just a roll of the dice?

 

[sourland]

A general rule of thumb is no more than she can cover on a single layer. Some people have success with extremely large clutches, but in my experience it just has not worked. My guess is that the don't get turned and warmed evenly.