eggs and chicks gone, why?

[lovinmychickens]

Our Mama Mallard has been laying on her six eggs for about 27, 28 days now, we figured they should have hatched by yesterday or today, we went out today to check and five eggs were gone, no chicks, no left over shells, there was one egg left and it has sound and movement in it so we took that one and put it in our incubator, does anyone know what could have happened to the others, there is two drakes in there with her, but they have been by her side this whole time, could they have done something to them, please help as we are very upset about this whole thing, we normally take our chicken eggs and incubate them, but we let the duck sit on hers since she was doing such a good job.

 

[Ducklove334]

are the in a pen?

if by 28 days the mallard eggs hadn't started to hatch, they were most likely bad, or had just died,

when a duck eggs goes bad in the nest, momma eats EVERYTHING, least by broody hens do, one of my mallard Tal's last two eggs must've ben duds too, because they were both gone this morning, and she's back with the flock, all my ducks are in an inclosed pen.

if they arn't in a pen, then my guess is either, the other babies hatched, if you can't see momma wait til she comes back, and see if there are fuzzies with her, or something scared her off and ate the eggs, even with only one she'd still be with it, if it was bad, she'd have eaten it just like the rest.

 

[lovinmychickens]

Hi, thanks so much for the reply, she had laid on 17 eggs in early spring and she would gradually get rid of one or two until we knew her time was up we removed the rest, but this time she had started out with six and has kept all six, today is day 28, there was still 6 lastnight, this morning there is one egg left, nothing else, yes she is penned with two drakes, we have since taken the last egg and put it in incubator becuase we can hear it is alive in there, but where could have the others gone? No trace of anything, no shells, feathers, fur, nothing, we are so disturbed by this.

 

[Ducklove334]

I imagine then, that the last of the eggs, for whatever reason, the babies died, or had been dead, and she ate them, Ducks, not like chickens, are very clean with their nests.

when my muscovy hens nest failed, she went back and forth for an hour, pulling out 10 or more rotten eggs, cracking them open in the water, eating the yolks, then eating the shells, 10 times she did this, and didn't stop until she was done, I imagine she had quite the belly ache afterwards LOL

I ended up pulling the rest of the eggs after she left the nest for good.