Can a silkie incubate my duck eggs?

[HeatherLynn]

I have a broody silkie right now and a mommy duck who is being annoyed by chickens so she gives up on her nests. Soo the proposal right now is to put the silkie in a brooder cage, along with a nesting box and plenty of nesting materials and 8 duck eggs? Anyone ever do this?

 

[lovin my birds]

I dont have silkies and my ducks arent old enough yet to lay. But i have heard that silkies are excellent broodies. I took some duck eggs from my frien and layed them under my broody hen and she did wonderful. So pretty much i think that any broody hen will lay on anything that resembles an egg. A few years ago i bought an old hen that was used just for breeding and had stopped laying but was still broody, and every time i would take her eggs away she would get so depressed. So i found ceramic eggs to put under her. And she started laying again.

Anyway back to your question another one of my friends has silkies and they hatched out a few turkey eggs for her. So i would say give it a try.

 

[Wifezilla]

Since i have such terrible luck with incubators, I am considering getting some silkies. The only issue with letting a chicken raise ducks is chicken momma tends to freak out when the duck babies hop in the first available body of water

 

[Suzie]

The answer is Yes! My Silkie - Maman is brilliant with duck eggs - she sat on an Indian Runner egg for ages - when it started to pip I gave it to one of my Muscovy girls Julia - Julia promptly picked the egg up - threw it against a wall, the chick started to come out of it's shell, Julia then ate through the remaining shell and with her beak she pushed the duckling underneath her - I thought it would be dead for sure but it survived ( with a headache probably ) - the runner chick stayed with Julia for about 2 months and then decided it wanted to venture further so it ended up spending most of it's time with it;s natural parents.... I say go for it!

Best of luck

Suzie