duck laying her eggs in another duck's nest?

[Queenandking13]

I have 3 Muscovy hens: Lady, Nasha, and Nanny. Lady made her own nest and laid 5 eggs in 5 days. 4 days later I discovered Nasha had a nest with 5 eggs and Nanny had made a nest and laid 1 egg. Its been more than a more than a week and lady abonded her eggs and has been laying HER eggs in Nasha's and Nanny's nest. Why would she do this??? Nanny is supposed to have 5 eggs and she has 8. Nasha is supposed to have 8 eggs and she has 13!!! Nanny and Nasha have ALWAYS laid 1 egg per day. Lady disappeared this morning and I saw her go out of Nanny's nest. I counted 7 eggs. Then Nanny went to go lay her egg. So now theres is 8 eggs. Why is Lady doing this??? What do I do with the 5 eggs? When its time to incubate who will sit on the eggs?

 

[Goose and Fig]

Have you ever heard the expression "Don't put all your eggs in one basket"?

Ducks will do this as a natural way to continue their gene pool in the event that something happens to their own nest.

 

[Queenandking13]

I do not understand? Can you be more clear?

 

[sherrik9]

Have you ever heard the expression "Don't put all your eggs in one basket"?

Ducks will do this as a natural way to continue their gene pool in the event that something happens to their own nest.

Now this makes sense. I had two ducks sharing nests and I now know why they would do such a thing. In case one duck doesn't make it her babies might if under another mother.

 

[Frank Phinster]

Ducks like to play cuckoo now and then, I got the same phenomenon at my place. My muscovy duck has again started to sit on another clutch of eggs. When I checked them two days ago I was a little surprised to pick up a pekin egg. Looks like my pekin sneaked at least once into the shed to lay her eggs into the scovie's nest.

 

[Goose and Fig]

There was a really good episode in the series "Life of Birds" about waterfowl. Highly recommend the whole series if you can squeeze it in on a few rainy days.

 

[Laci D Hill]

I have kind of a similar problem/question. I have 5 magpies n they all ALWAYS lay in the same nest in the hen house floor. If I want one to hatch out some, how do I go about getting just one duck to sit a nest full of eggs? At 5 eggs a day being added to the nest, would a duck go broody that quick n set 20 or so eggs? All my ducks came from one pair of a friend of mine. The duck set n hatched 17 on her own. Mine started laying in December, are they old enough to go broody if i quit collecting their eggs? These are my first ducks, so I'm full of questions!

 

[Miss Lydia]

I have kind of a similar problem/question. I have 5 magpies n they all ALWAYS lay in the same nest in the hen house floor. If I want one to hatch out some, how do I go about getting just one duck to sit a nest full of eggs? At 5 eggs a day being added to the nest, would a duck go broody that quick n set 20 or so eggs? All my ducks came from one pair of a friend of mine. The duck set n hatched 17 on her own. Mine started laying in December, are they old enough to go broody if i quit collecting their eggs? These are my first ducks, so I'm full of questions!

They love to lay in the same nest, goes on here and also with my chickens too. but just because they lay in the same nest doesn't mean all will go broody and want to sit the same nest, but you may get 2 that want to share. I have had that happen, once they make a for sure decision they are truly broody then divide the eggs up between them and separate if you want so each duck will have her own nest and ducklings when they hatch. Broodiness is something only the duck knows so yes marking the eggs say 1thru and when they finally start to brood then take out the oldest eggs until you get the number you want your ducks to hatch. Or leave them all if you can support as many as she is sitting,Lets us know when you finally get a broody!

 

[subhanalah]

I would say 20 would be too many for one nest.8-12 seems like a good brood size. Have fun with your duckies I hope you get some hatchlings!

 

[Laci D Hill]

Thanks ya'll! I'm excited.