Hatching ducklings with a young mom

[EdgeofAsheville]

We have a breeding pair of Harlequin ducks and we are incubating some hopefully fertile eggs in the hopes of adding to our duck family. Our female is young and not at all broody, I’ve never seen her even near her eggs. So how and when do you introduce ducklings?
I’ve been reading Storey’s guide to Raising Ducks but his section on rearing ducks seems to be either all artificial or all natural. I’m hoping to do a bit of both. We’d like to give the ducklings a great start but hoping that at a young age we can introduce them to their parents to take over.
Is that realistic? Is it season sensitive? It is November and though we don’t get huge winters in NC it can get chilly at night. We’d, of course, shut them in the duck house at night.

 

[Crazy Maizie]

Most likely you're going to have to wait until they are fully feathered especially if you're going into winter soon. They will need to be integrated like they are strangers. A broody duck is the only thing that will accept newly hatched ducklings and even then you would be taking the chance that she might not. That's not to say that if the weather is cooperating and you can set up a pen next to the adults, that the adults won't accept them sooner. But, you're not going to be able to just give mama and papa duck their offspring without some type of integration process.

 

[EdgeofAsheville]

Most likely you're going to have to wait until they are fully feathered especially if you're going into winter soon. They will need to be integrated like they are strangers. A broody duck is the only thing that will accept newly hatched ducklings and even then you would be taking the chance that she might not. That's not to say that if the weather is cooperating and you can set up a pen next to the adults, that the adults won't accept them sooner. But, you're not going to be able to just give mama and papa duck their offspring without some type of integration process.

Bummer. Not the storybook family I envisioned. But maybe when it’s warmer and our young female gets older and broody we can do it the natural way. I guess we’ll be raising the ducklings ourselves then! Thanks

 

[Crazy Maizie]

IF ... not all ducks go broody, but maybe she will once she gets a bit older. Good luck! Either way we love duckling pics.

 

[igorsMistress]

If possible I had great luck with keeping the babies in with the older ducks but separated by wire. It can’t be chicken wire because babies could slip through or stick heads through and be injured by the older ducks. If you do this early so they can get to know each other then by the time babies are a couple months old everyone should be well acquainted.