Broody Musco question....

[Musco]

We had 2 of our Musco's sitting on roughy 16 eggs but we started noticing that every once in a while they would push 1 or 2 out. We collected them as they were pushing them out and we would put them straight in the incubator. It came down to them only having 4 under both of them and today when I went out in the morning they had pushed 2 of those out. This afternoon when I went to check on eveybody they were no longer sitting on eggs and I noticed the 2 eggs that were left there were busted up in the run and there was no sing of any ducklings, just severely busted up egg shells. The have been sitting on the eggs for about 29 or 30 days now. What happend and is this normal in any way? We've candled the eggs from the incubator and they appear to be just a few days away from hatching....

We have had a bit of a fox issue in the last few weeks, hanging around the coops, would this have cause this? I am also happy to report that I am 100% possitive that the fox issue is no longer....

Any advice would be good for future hatches, Thanks.

 

[duckielub]

That's just crazy. First, I would have thought maybe instinct allowed them to know the eggs were bad. But, since you're saying they have chicks in them.... I just don't know. That's nuts. I have a broody khaki right now who will actually go out into the pen and get the egg laid by my other hen (she lays them randomly wherever she wants) and put it in her next every morning.

I can't imagine why they would push them out. Maybe the fox issue stressed them, and they knew Mom (being YOU of course) would come save the day!

 

[learycow]

From my experience, they know which eggs are bad and they push them out before they blow up in the nest.
My hen started with 22 eggs (this was back in May). When they were a week, week and a half away from hatching, I noticed she would push out an egg here or there. At first I would put it back in the nest, but the next day it would be out again. So I started to break open the eggs she rolled out. Each one was bad. Either it never developed, or it had a duckling that had died early in the growth stage and had started to rot.
With that clutch, she ended up rolling out a total of 5 eggs, all of which were duds. The leftover 17 all ended up hatching.

It sounds to me like your hens have given up. If they rolled out most of their eggs, I would have first guessed that they were bad eggs. But since you said you candled them and they are alive and close to hatching, it seems like the hens my have gotten impatient and left the nest. This is unusual with muscovys. They are generally excellent mothers and I've never had one leave a nest like that.

The fox may have been an issue too. The hens may not have felt that it was safe to hatch babies, and that could've been a reason for abandoning the eggs.

One thing you may want to try is giving your hens their own nesting places. I have found that eggs and ducklings do much better if they are hatched by one mother verses 2 or 3. I had 2 hens share a nest this summer, and out of 40+ eggs, only 25 hatched (some were duds, others made it to hatching but didn't make it out, and quite a few got stepped on as the mothers fought over them). I put a few round barrels outside for them (I have them penned so they don't mate with my other breeds) and filled them with hay. Each hen chose a different barrel to make her own nest in. I ended up with 99-100% hatch rate when they had their own nest to take care of.

Just some thoughts

 

[FarmrGirl]

I've had Muscovy and Welsh Harlequin push eggs out of the nest that were viable. Not just one or two, but several. I thought at first that the girls would know that the eggs weren't good and were getting them out of the nest so they could focus on the ones that were certain to hatch. I candled every one they pushed out and if it looked like it was developing I put it in the incubator. Most of those eggs hatched without any trouble and I just slipped the new babies under mama duck with the one's she hatched on her own.

I have no idea why they push them out. But my Muscovy nests are way up off the ground at about head height, and there have been times they've rolled those suckers down two sets of ramps to get them as far away as possible! LOL!

You'd think that would have scrambled the contents but some of those have hatched out in the incubator.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Quote:

and they don't crack either, most of my muscovy eggs I just about have to use a hammer to crack open.

 

[Musco]

Thanks for all the replies...glad to hear too that i'm not the only one this happend to. I'll keep everybody posted, should find something out in the next few days about our hatch....

 

[D'Angelo N Va.]

Good luck, glad.the.fox is no more

 

[Jay-Mar28]

This is just a guess but i heard within a muscovy nest that eggs closest to the outside of the nest would become males because of the cooler temp. while the ones warmest become females. Could it possibly be an instinct of ratios? If there are alot of competition with males perhaps they are rolling the outside eggs away as a way to protect themselves? Sounds way out of left field.

 

[farmdude]

Quote:
I've never heard this with birds, but have heard this with turtles.