The broody is a mallard. The eggs are a combo of (father) mallard and (mothers) mallard, blue runner, welsh harlequin and khaki campbell. Yes, these are the eggs I washed. I used plain mountain water heated to 100 degrees. Around the time that (I thought) they were all due she rolled two out of the nest. One was infertile and another had a hole in the shell w/ a dead duckling inside. So, I cracked open two eggs on the ground seriously thinking there would be nothing inside. Both had a duckling inside. That was on July 9, or day 30 based on the day she went broody, which was June 9. I think the June 9 date is pretty accurate based on the day the chickens were born (day 22). They could have been alive but I may have just killed them!?!?? Neither were moving. One still had a little bit of the yolk sac attached, the other looked just days away from hatching. I won't be doing that again! """"NO HATERS PLEASE, WE"RE ALL HERE TO LEARN"""" I am a newbie and at that point I had not looked at hundreds of pictures of candling eggs. When everyone became sequestered mama had her swimming water taken away, hence, no more humidity at a very vital time. Another newbie mistake on my part. Here is where it gets real confusing. The sequestering began when the baby chickens were born (June 30). Prior to that I had some egg bombers on the nest so I marked all original 17 eggs with a sharpie and started removing all the new eggs. Now I should have marked that date on the calendar, but didn't because I had marked the eggs, right? Wrong, because now (today) all the eggs that are in her nest have NO marks from the sharpie! I'm baffled about this. I should also add that there are two eggs unaccounted for. They just disappeared. Mama is starting to leave the nest for longer periods. Poor thing is trying to entice the chicks to swim with her. I've let them all free range a bit today. Seems like she's staying off the nest for longer periods. They seem cool at times. But, when she goes back in, she goes back and faithfully sits on the nest. She is even still rotating them. If I use the sequester date and assume the eggs that are in there now are the dive bombed ones then that buys us 2 extra weeks. And, assuming that the egg she rolled out on July 9 (which btw, looked fully developed) could have been from the original batch (which had the sharpie). So, as long as she's willing to keep sitting I will let her sit for two more weeks. I've stopped candling. I feel like I have handled them enough.
