Ducklings hatch, Duck abandons remaining eggs

I'm new to ducks, but I always think mother nature knows best. Good luck!

 

Wow--that's a lot of eggs--10 ducklings plus 1 dead plus 8 eggs=19 eggs! Good job to her for hatching them out!

If you want to try and save the rest, the first thing to do is to see if they are living. If your weather is like ours, they won't get chilled quickly if at all during the day. Bring them into the house, into the darkest spot you can find--climb in a closet if you have to. Use a very bright flashlight and cup it against the egg so that no light escapes around the edges but it shines right through the egg. Look at it from different angles and see if you can spot any movement. If something in it moves of its own accord, you've got a live duckling in there. If not, there's a good chance it's already dead, and the mother duck knew what she was doing.

If you have living ducklings, there is a good chance of saving them by bringing them in and keeping them warm. At this stage, the temp doesn't have to be exact--try to keep it between 97-101 (lower is better than higher--they can overhead very quickly), and try to keep the air around them as humid as possible--that may mean keeping them on top of warm, moist paper towels, or something similar. Then just wait, and keep posting updates.

Of course, it's also perfectly legitimate to assume the mother knows what she's doing and let nature take its course.

If you are able to hatch some, you can probably tuck them under the mother at night and she'll raise them along with the others.

Good luck and congrats on the babies!

 

Be careful with "black" eggs. They are probably rotten and about to explode.