Can chickens hatch duck eggs

[Crazy4Fowl]

I went out today to find my chicken on two duck eggs. Can the chickens hatch them? Or will the chicken try to kill them?

 

[GitaBooks]

Chickens make wonderful mothers to ducks. They are used for hatching duck eggs pretty regularly and she should do a wonderful job raising them.

 

[Crazy4Fowl]

Chickens make wonderful mothers to ducks. They are used for hatching duck eggs pretty regularly and she should do a wonderful job raising them.

Ok thanks

 

[Crazy4Fowl]

I have 8 hens (3 black australorp, 3 Rhode island reds, an Americana, and a Barred rock) living with 3 ducks ( a male, 2 females). I was worried the chickens would kill the ducklings when they hatched, thats why I was asking. So far I haven't seen the ducks laying on the eggs but I saw one of the australorps laying on them.

 

[GitaBooks]

The other chickens probably won't bother them, especially if they have a protective momma there. You could separate them the first few days after hatching, but ducklings are larger and tougher then chicks (from what I hear).

 

[greenporter]

So how does a chicken "raise" a duck she hatches? We may be a couple weeks from this ourselves and were thinking we might have to take away the hatchling to raise ourselves as we normally do with incubator hatches.

 

[ChickenGrass]

Yes a chicken can hatch ducklings
But the hen won't teach them to swim
But if you let a duck hatch chickens
The duck will try teach the chicks to swim
And they will drown
So i would not let a duck hatch chickens
But if she does take the chicks at day old
Hope this helps

 

[greenporter]

Thank you. I will post a new thread so as not to hijack this one.

 

[shortgrass]

Yep DH used hens to hatch over 150 mallards ROFL.... They had Mallard mothers too, just needed the hens to help out Great incubators!