Can I help my ducks have ducklings?

[MapleKehDucks]

3 of my 4 ducks are broody and laying eggs in makeshift nests around my pond (they are free range). The eggs are definitely fertilized and we want them to have a good chance to have ducklings... but something has been getting the eggs in the evenings. I'm very frustrated. I could get an incubator and try to hatch the eggs that way, but I don't want to have to go through raising ducklings on my own again. Can I use the incubator to hatch the eggs and then give them back to the ducks? Would they take on the babies and teach them and cuddle with them at night? Or is this a terrible idea? I tried moving an egg into my coop into a makeshift straw nest (where I feed them) to see if they would stay in there... no luck. They want to stay free. I have 2 pekin females, 1 rouen female, and 1 cayuga female. My female cayuga is laying beautiful black eggs and I'm VERY upset that something got them! Please help! Any advice will be appreciated.

 

[Miss Lydia]

It’s amazing something hasn’t gotten your ducks too. Free range is fine but at night eggs ducks and duckling are food for predators. Make a large pen around your coop so you can train your females to lay in the coop and brood if they have a mind to. I’m not sure about Rouen but Pekins have pretty much had the broodiness bred out of them. So if you have some broodies they may not stick to it although I have seen a few on here who had their Pekin hatch ducklings it’s pretty rare though. No if you hatch in an incubator none of your females will take the ducklings to raise. If you want duckling work on getting your ducks to go into their coop at night to lay before daylight or raise some ducklings on your own and introduce as new flock member when they are old enough.

 

[MapleKehDucks]

I put extra straw in my coop and modeled a nest to mimic my ducks' style of nest. I moved the eggs I found to it and put them up in the coop overnight to see how they'd do. This morning I found new eggs in the nest and the ducks were happy as can be! I guess I'm going to continue to put them up at night and see if we can make some babies!! I really hope we get some this year