chicken hatching duck eggs

[stargazingmommy]

How likely is it that my broody hen will hatch the duck egg she's sitting on?
I candled it this morning and its got lots of blood vessels and a nice embryo that was wiggling around(way cool!)
she's been on it about 2 weeks(I think)
Will I need to take it away from her and hatch it in the house?
She's also sitting on 4 chicken eggs in the hopes those will hatch(and 5 more in the house for the kids to try to hatch).

 

[RAREROO]

She can most definitely hatch it just as good as a duck can. I let a hen hatch a whole clutch of ducks for me before and I let a duck hatch a clutch of turkeys and both did great so one species can hatch andother species's eggs just fine. However, if she set the chicken eggs and duck egg at the same time, the problem you will have is that chicken eggs take 3 weeks to hatch and duck eggs take 4 weeks, so once the chicks hatch, then hen will leave the nest with them and the duck egg will be left to chill and die, so if the hen is where you can check her every day, I would leave the duck egg with her til the chicks start pipping, then take it out and put it in the incubator.

Or when the chicks start pipping, you could put them in the incubator and hatch them and brood them for a week, and leave the duck egg under the hen (maybe put a couple infertile store bought eggs under her then too so she doesent realize a big difference in the number of eggs), and let the hen go another week and hatch the duck egg, then put the chicks back under her the night the duck hatches, and she should take them all as her own and never realize you've done all this crazy swaping on her, though she may think one of her chicks is crazy when it runs off into a mud puddle.

The second option would be best for the duckling, but either way, if you only hatch one duckling, dont brood it alone, ducks are not solitary animals and do not like being alone.

 

[stargazingmommy]

tyty
I just ordered an incubator this morning.
We did this more as an experiment, To see if the duck eggs were fertile.
My teens are loving it and we hope the chicken eggs hatch(some were a week old)

 

[Jay262]

I have hatched them under chickens lots of times. I dont recommend hatching chickens eggs under a duck though she tends to want to take them swiming which never ends well for a chick.

 

[RAREROO]

Quote:
Oh yep, I forgot to mention tht too, yes that would end badly, don't let a duck raise anything other than waterfowl. I took the turkey poults my duck hatched and brooded them myself and gave her some ducklings I haready had hatched.