How long will a Muscovy wait for eggs to hatch?

[Humanbean68]

My Muscovy hen is setting on two eggs that i suspect have died....I would like to swap them out for some that are healthy and developing from another duck, but they are about two weeks younger. Will my Muscovy keep sitting until the new eggs are ready, or will she abandon the nest after the expected gestation time? I will remove the old eggs and leave her with only the new ones.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Haha I think my muscovy females would sit as long as they had eggs under them. Actually I have 2 right now sitting on nothing. You just want to make sure she is taking care of herself, coming out to eat drink bathe and of course, do the despicable broody poop.

 

[Banana01]

What are you going to do with the hatchlings? Will they be seperated or stay with the mom?

My duck had 11 eggs and even though I thought 10 were bad, I let her sit on them for a month. Then removed some after holding a flashlight to see which were clear so I knew they were bad ones. I let her sit on them a longer, and when 4 finally hatched, she stayed with the other unhatched ones until I candled them and removed them.

Two weeks is a long time differenence, and I would be afraid she would leave during the day to be with the ones that hatch. She would sleep on them at night for sure, so you would maybe have to keep her locked up all the time with the eggs, which is not what my set up can allow for. But my duck was really smart and probably would have sensed they were alive and stayed.

 

[Humanbean68]

I am physically removing her once a day if I see that she has not used her bathtub yet.... although now I set her down on the grass first for the poo explosion, and don’t put her directly in the tub. I only had to make that mistake once...
Declan’s will stay with mom, but I don’t anticipate having hatchings two weeks apart. I am giving these eggs another day or two to show any signs of life, and then the plan is to remove them and replace them with eggs that are viable, but two weeks younger. I was just afraid that some internal clock might kick in and she would just get up after 35 days.

 

[Crazy Maizie]

My broody would not give up being broody for over a couple of months time - where I continually destroyed the nest and removed her. So I finally put chicken eggs under her. She sat for the next 3 weeks until they hatched.
She was happy, but then I had to take them away after a day. She was being a great duck mom, just not a great chicken mom.
If the other eggs are 2 weeks along, she will have about a little over 3 weeks to go. I made my broody get off the nest in the morning and afternoon until just 2 days before hatch time. Then, she was on her own.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I am physically removing her once a day if I see that she has not used her bathtub yet.... although now I set her down on the grass first for the poo explosion, and don’t put her directly in the tub. I only had to make that mistake once...
Declan’s will stay with mom, but I don’t anticipate having hatchings two weeks apart. I am giving these eggs another day or two to show any signs of life, and then the plan is to remove them and replace them with eggs that are viable, but two weeks younger. I was just afraid that some internal clock might kick in and she would just get up after 35 days.

Boy it only takes once with that broody poop doesnt it. lol

If your girl is like my Muscovy she will stay the course. Be sure to let us know how it goes.

 

[Humanbean68]

So I managed to get three replacement eggs and swap them out for the two she had, which upon investigation were indeed rotten. She seems happy with them, will give her a few days and then sneak one out to candle and see how it looks.

 

[Miss Lydia]

 

[Txfarm]

Haha I think my muscovy females would sit as long as they had eggs under them. Actually I have 2 right now sitting on nothing. You just want to make sure she is taking care of herself, coming out to eat drink bathe and of course, do the despicable broody poop.

I had a Muscovy hen sit on her first batch for over 45 days, I finally had to remove her eggs. They had all died a long time ago.

 

[Humanbean68]

My hen only got one baby out of her 3 donor eggs but she was happy. Next time I’ll know not to leave them too much longer than the ‘due date’!