Clucky hen help

I guess clucky means she's setting/broody.

How old are the duck eggs?

Is that your only chicken hen?

 

If you have no intention of hatching ducklings then removing them is unlikely to affect her broodiness. Since she is broody she may not let the rooster mate with her and she will not resume laying until she stops being broody.

If you have other hens then they should begin laying fertile eggs around two to four weeks after the introduction of the roo, but you can check yolks after a couple of weeks just to check if they are fertile. You could give her those eggs.

It's up to you whether you wish to let your hen continue to be broody - bear in mind that she may lose condition however. If you can get hold of fertile eggs from somewhere, then you could simply put those under her - not the best time of year for that to be an option possibly.

You could see if there is a BYC community in your area by going to the "where am I, where are you" threads and ask around for fertile eggs.

Ct

 

I agree with Ken except I would expect fertile eggs sooner than that.
After a mating, the sperm is stored just inside the vagina until the next egg is laid when some is squeezed out of the primary folds of the vaginal mucosa and makes it way to the infundibulum where fertilization occurs. So depending on how frequently they lay, they could be fertile by the third egg after mating.

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1628&context=usdaarsfacpub

 

If you want her to mate with your rooster, you'll need her to stop being clucky because she will not lay any eggs while she is sitting on the eggs. Get some water that you don't consider hot or cold when you put your hand in, and place her into the water up to her waist (does a chook have a waist ? well, wet her belly ) she'll probably give up being clucky for the rest of the day, or if you did it each day she might go back to laying fertile eggs. You put the fertile eggs in the fridge after writing the date on them. Eat them after a month. When she goes clucky again, put them under her after leaving them out of the fridge for a few hours to warm up again. If she doesn't go clucky you can get a 112 egg incubator with auto tilting for about $140. You can put them in there and hope that she goes clucky before they hatch. On hatching day, see how many you can sneak under her as soon as they PIp (good), or chicks up to a day old (ok), or more? (might work sometimes? ). She won't care if she has been clucky for just a day, the chicks are what she wants, not the sitting on eggs part, she will be happy to skip that part usually.

The number of eggs under her doesn't usually have a big impact on cluckyness. I have one at the moment that seriously seems to have no idea which of the 4 nest boxes is hers and just picks a random one, eggs or not. I'm hoping to put chicks under her, and I guess they'll follow her whichever one she goes into.

The old duck eggs can be left there, although you could get plastic eggs out of china or hong kong for next to nothing, about 30-40c each in lots of 10. They last a long time unless feral cats chew them of course.

 

I'd suggest reading further on breaking broodiness - the suggestion above is a more stressful than others for sure and not one that I would personally use. Fertile eggs should be ideally no more than 10 days old and stored in a cool place, not the fridge, for optimal results with pointed end down (and tilted - reversing the tilt a couple of times per day).

Ct

 

Again, Ken is right.
The tried and true method of breaking a broody hen is to suspend her in a wire bottom cage with food and water. This allows cool air to reach her underside. A bath would be temporary at best.

 

You are most welcome and good luck with your egg search!

Ct

 

+1 good luck !

I point out that getting wet is something that happens to chooks and their jungle ancestors on planets where it rains. Nature doesn't wire up their heads to consider rain to be a stressful event. The flow of water all over the nest and chicken makes sitting on the nest and regulating the egg temperature a little more difficult, so they are programmed to want to throw in the towel a little bit. I don't see why they'd be programmed to die as well, but maybe I'm not smart enough to think of an evolutionary reason why that would be a good idea for the chook. My own chooks which I have done it to have sat very calmly in my hands and waited until I lifted them out of the water, they didn't even try to get out or jump. I would call that content. I don't like the idea of imprisoning my chooks in a cage for all the same reasons why people support free range. I support free range. The clucky hens can do what they want at my house even to the point of jumping out of my hands to avoid the water. They don't, and after they are wet, they just wander around as usual, making social rounds of the flock and scratching for bugs. I do the water thing two or three times max and then leave her be if she is determined, most are not really, but if one is, then she'd be a good incubator to use. Don't want one that would jump off $50 worth of eggs at the first sign of rain.