Gettin darn good at hatchin call ducklings-PICS!

[jbourget]

thank ya thank you very much

 

[LilMissChz]

Wow!!! THEY are so CUTE!! Thank you so much for uploading the photos.

 

[Ash-Rose Farms]

Have you always use brooding animals for the incubation? and do you try anything to help them hatch?

 

[jbourget]

yes natural incubation always works best, especially a duck! wild ones really do the job excellent. my mandarin hens sit thier own eggs, for 2.5 weeks. then i pull those hatch them in the redwood...then stick call eggs under her for another 2 weeks to get them developed then take those to the incubator again and so on....you can get the hens to sit all spring and into summer usually.

 

[Miss Lydia]

yes natural incubation always works best, especially a duck! wild ones really do the job excellent. my mandarin hens sit thier own eggs, for 2.5 weeks. then i pull those hatch them in the redwood...then stick call eggs under her for another 2 weeks to get them developed then take those to the incubator again and so on....you can get the hens to sit all spring and into summer usually.

Don't they ever get to raise any on their own?

 

[Ash-Rose Farms]

well i'm having troubles getting my eggs to hatching day... just trying to find difrent ways to hatch them... tried bantom chickens a few years ago but when the eggs got like a week end the hens... distroyed the eggs... might to to get a mallard hen maybe.. or by a smaller incubator... thanks for the ideas!!!!

 

[jbourget]

Yep, if a call duck makes a nest i just let her fill it with a clutch of eggs and she will sit on them. the greys and this one white call hen i have always set. ive got 4 or 5 nesting now and about 50 something call babies now. first blue and black bibbeds hatched today

 

[Ash-Rose Farms]

all i got now is a pair of chocolate and snowy and one lonely snowy duckling about a month old... the only time they ever make a nest is when its the middle of Jan. and the eggs always freeze so its hard to get them to sit... i think my calls stop laying for now or something crawling in their area and eating the eggs (got a little rat problem) i may make some indoor area's for this next winter and see if they sit... due that natural incubation is the best. what's your result on when the hens just sit on their own eggs?

 

[jbourget]

i have a grey hen who raises 3 clutches of babies per year average 9 ducklings per clutch...they all usually hatch maybe 1 here or there that doesnt under a hen

 

[Ash-Rose Farms]

thats really good!!!!!!! i did have a good furtility rate of around 75% just wish i got them all the way to hatching day...