Giving duck eggs to broody chicken

[skya328]

We have had duck eggs in an incubator. Today is day 21. We have a broody chicken and were thinking of transferring the eggs to her to hatch instead of doing lockdown in the incubator. Will this be ok or should we wait until they hatch to give them to her?

All input is appreciated!

 

[ejctm]

Is she already sitting on some dummy eggs? How long has she been broody, i.e. sitting all day every day, pecking and clucking if disturbed, fluffing up her feathers on the nest, etc? Has she been a good broody mother before?

I have hatched under a broody hen with great success, but that was from the start of incubation, not just for the end. I would have a few reservations, probably because if she is not properly settled into sitting, then they have advanced very far to lose them if she abandoned them.

 

[skya328]

She has been broody for about 10 days. We gave her a dummy egg a day or two after she started setting. She has been an excellent mama in the past. In fact, one time we found her setting on about 20 eggs and she had fire ant bites all over her face. (We moved her right away.) Even after all that she wouldn't budge. Those eggs ended up not hatching so I got some babies for her to raise so she would get up off the nest! She definitely won't have any issues abandoning the eggs. She has hatched out about a dozen+ babies already and then also raised the ones that time I went and got babies for her.

 

[ejctm]

perhaps your instincts are right, and she is a proven good mother in the past. I don't have any experience in using hens for just a week of incubation, but if you have said that you put babies with her in the past, then I guess she won't be counting the days!

One thing I would say though, is that it might be helpful to mist the eggs with a little warm water once a day when she gets up to eat and poop, as ducks need a higher humidity than a hen normally ensures. I always do this with mine and get a great hatch rate (or at least the hen does!) Overall, I think nature does a much better job than any human machine can do!

Staunch disciples of incubators will probably not agree, lol! Good luck whatever you decide, and hope you get lots of cute lovely little babies.