Can a Muscovy be TOO Broody?

[Bleenie]

Some of you might know that recently one of my younger girls started laying. She laid a couple very odd eggs and then she chose her own nest and has continued to lay in it. I was planning on removing some of her eggs soon, mainly the smaller ones... Well this morning I went out to let everyone loose and found the little booger in "her" box with hay piled up all in front of her box.. pluss a few featheres here and there..

It's only been about 10 days since she laid her Very First egg!
This REALLY suprised me. I have had Silkies do this before but they were SILKIES, lol....I am wondering if i am breeding too much broodiness into the Muscovy flock?

Opinions?

 

[cracking up]

My muscovy is almost always broody. I never get to collect her eggs because she waits until she's let out to lay and starts sitting when she gets about fifteen. She does make a good mother but picks strange places to lay.
Ten days after starting to lay does seem too soon but maybe she just needed a break from everything else.

 

[Bleenie]

That's true.. She probably needed a break from her drake, Fatty... He keeps em pretty close to him at all times and it's clear they have been breeding quite a bit.

 

[Bleenie]

I am also a little worried about her eggs not being fertile. I took away the 2 smallest ones and broke them open a few minutes ago and 1 was definitely, very clearly fertile but the other was not fertile, It was also one of the first ones she laid and a little mis-shapen.. i had a hell of a time getting it open and it almost expolded because the yolk inside was so huge.. I dunno how she even formed a shell around it!

Should I just leave the rest of the good-sized eggs in there for her to brood? if the newer one was fertile the rest probably are, right?

Sorry, I have Never had one of my girls do this to me before, talk about stressful!!

 

[cracking up]

We weren't sure ours were fertile either. The males were hatched out in April and we've had the female for a year. Last time she went broody we gave her runner eggs because we realized she wasn't going to stop until something hatched. Every once in a while one of the males gets on the nest with her and causes eggs to roll out. I was kind of surprised to see all of the veins in them. He rolled four eggs out today, three were cracked and one was ok but all were fertile. I moved them into the incubator after patching them with wax and I'll try giving them back when it's closer to hatching time.It's so much easier to let her brood them.

I think I would leave her for a while and decide later about taking them away. She might get bored with it.