How long after a bad first clutch till a hen starts a second cluch?

[arcticlarry]

The pond I built attracted wild Mallards this year so I built them a floating house. She laid four eggs and did not sit on them (possibly she could no longer get up the ramp as it became slipper and I had not provided traction devices). I removed the eggs 14 days after she laid the last one and it is now 25 day since she laid any eggs. How long should she take to start laying again and how late in the season can she lay and raise them successfully? Also, should I replace the nesting material I provided? Thanks for any information you can provide a newcomer.

 

[desertdarlene]

I'm not entirely sure about what happens when the eggs are bad and am interested in the answer, too. I have seen females begin to breed again not long after losing all their ducklings. In my area, they will breed all the way into August, so it's still pretty early in the season.

 

[DuckLover9138]

They might not put their eggs at the same place again. They are smarter than that. I hope you incubate the eggs. Those baby mallards deserve to be born.

 

[aduckstolemyheart]

I don't know about breeding again, but we do have a similar situation. And my hen just did the darnedest thing.

She sat on her nest for 34 days until one by one we figured out the eggs had stopped developing, been stolen or gone bad. She got down to one and refused to abandon the nest. Today we found she had stolen the eggs my non broody hen had laid this week, and made a new nest on the other end of the pen and abandoned the last egg of her own!

SO apparently they can steal eggs if so motivated! lol

 

[bossynbella]

I am also curious about this. We have a muscovy hen who sat for 21 days on her eggs, then one day just got up and never went back. She acts like she was never even broody. I hope she will try again, and I wish I had an incubator that I could of put those eggs in.
As far as them stealing eggs, or babies, I have a funny story for that. Our other muscovy hen laid four eggs in our nest box in the garage. The day she laid the fourth one our banty hen "Lacey" decided to go broody on them. She wouldn't let the duck "wendy" back in. So Wendy started laying in the next box over. Last Saturday Lacey hatched out two ducklings. Somehow Wendy got them out of the box, and had them out in the yard, Lacey looked confused and tried sitting on the ducks eggs (but no way can a little banty hen cover 10 muscovy eggs) We ended up bringing Lacey and the two ducklings inside, and they are doing great. Luckily Wendy went back to her eggs, which should hatch sometime between this Saturday and next Wednesday.

my banty hen and her two ducklings