Hatching Ducks Under Broody Hen?

[chrystalduck]

My sister has ask me to save out some duck eggs this morning to put under her broody hen. Sis, has an incubator full of chicken eggs right now, and wouldn't you know now, 2 hens have went broody. Has anyone had success with hatching ducks under a broody hen? I love my ducks and I want to be sure they would have the best possible start to life. I'm picky with there eggs too

 

[sandracollins]

I have hatched call duck eggs under a B.O. and a silkie cross recently ,the problem I had was that the chicks were shrunk wrapped,I have read since that you need to mist the eggs everyday to mimic the duck getting off them and going for a swim and then getting back on them wet. I had a great hatch rate once I helped them out 15 out of 15 but the B.O. squashed 4 she was just too big for the little ducklings so I took them from her and gave he 2 day old chicks and the silkie hatched all 7 with a bit of help from me and1 died,I followed the instructions on sundown silkies website about hatching and it worked really well .Good luck with your hatch what type of ducks do you have?

 

[Wifezilla]

Many people hatch ducks under broody hens. Some people even hatch chickens under a broody duck. The only issue with that is a mamma duck will lead her babies to the closest body of water a couple of days after hatching.

 

[chrystalduck]

Some of my ducks I have in my avatar picture. I have 3 wh girls 1 wh drake. An assortment of cute lovable mixes. 2 cayugas, 1 runner, 1 blue swedish. A khaki duck, and a khaki drake. I have 15 in all. I also have 30 duck eggs in the bator some of these are for my sil. Wow, looks like I may be duck crazy

Thanks for your input on the hatching. I think she is going to give it a try. I gathered 7 eggs for her.

 

[ozark hen]

Ask me in a couple weeks...I have a bourbon red turkey hen sitting on five duck eggs. I don't even know if they are fertile?

 

[chrystalduck]

Ozark hen, do let us know the outcome..

 

[ozark hen]

Quote:
Oh, I will

 

[Captain Cluck]

I hatched 4 out of 6 duck eggs under my broody buff orpington hen about 5 weeks ago.

She is an excellent mama, teaching them to scratch for bugs (OK, by chicken standards the poor things are seriously retarded,

so she scratches up the bugs and calls them to eat) stays near while they play in their pool and defends them against the other hens. She is rather helpless against our Pekin drake when he wants the little ones out of his pool though.

Since they are now as big as she is, she has no problem leaving them in their playpen (a 10' x 10' area fenced off with 12" high lattice to keep the ducks separate - but the hens can hop over no problem) going off with the other hens for dust baths and napping. She does still insist on sleeping in their crate with them, even though it means her tail feathers get wet and broken off.

Like I said, she's a good mama.

 

[ozark hen]

 

[ozark hen]

My bourbon red turkey just hatched at least one muscovy duckling!!! ha ha I was in run cleaning and happened to look over at the large dog house she is sitting in and low and behold there it was !!!!!!!!!

Couldn't help but laugh my head off. I ran into the house for my camera but it had gone under her when I got back. Later I could see a piece of it's head sticking out from under her wing. No way I could get a good shot of it. Hopefully, it will be braver in the next day or two and I can get a pic to post. Funniest thing I ever saw...turkey thinks a duckling is her baby. Going to be very interesting watching her raise it. Hope the other four eggs hatch now.