Broody Muscovy - Advice please?

[cheekylittleb]

New to ducks and have a broody muscovy who has been sitting on eggs in the nesting box (in shared coop with 6 hens and 2 khaki campbells and muscovy drake) If the eggs do hatch what do I do? Do I leave the mother to her own devices? Do I intervene? I'm not sure please advise thanks in advance

 

[Indiana hens]

Duck eggs take longer than chicken eggs to incubate. Give her plenty of time for the # of eggs that she has. When the tiime is up take away the eggs and she will try again or steal chicken eggs.

 

[onedozenphyllises]

You shouldn't need to intervene - they are great setters and mothers. Muscovy eggs take about 35-37 days to hatch, and when they do, she'll do a great job of raising the babies (AND, it will be the cutest thing you've ever seen). Leave her alone to do her thing unless you notice an obvious problem.

I will say, though, that one of my chickens saw the big nest full of duck eggs and became broody herself! There was a fight over the nest, and I had to remove mama chicken to another area with some eggs of her own!

 

[Bleenie]

My Muscovy are amazing mothers. always set large clutches and hatch every one of them. as long as theyre in a secure area and arent being beaten up they should be fine.

my hen just started laying again after her last babies got to about 2 months. shes already trying to collect her eggs for another nest!

she gave me a ton of blues last time but i think its going to be all blacks this time...she's found a new man..

 

[cheekylittleb]

Thanks for al the replies that's very helpful.

 

[MDC]

I think it'd be a wise idea to consider the number of predators you have, whether your pens are secure, and whether you're willing to accept some loss if the predator population is high or your fencing inadequate to prevent predators from gaining access before you decide to intervene or not. Things to think of are crows, owls, eagles, hawks, dogs, feral cats, raccoon, fox, mink, etc. You might not know you have a problem until it's too late. Are neighbor's dogs a concern? Are their kids? Unfortunately as distasteful as it is at times you can have 15 ducklings one day and 0 the next and it's not until it's too late that you realize that you have potential problems.

HTH