How to turn a broody duck back non-broody??

[Kimmyh51]

Further to my hating to destroy a nest on a keen mummy duck to be...

It's ironic when you relent and let a duck sit cos she's SOOOO keen and soo dedicated and clearly set her heart on babies... And you can see her earnest genuine desire to be a mum in her eyes, along with all the promises of how great a mother she's going to be.....

Then she hatches them a group of fluffy adorable little cuties....
and a couple,of days later is off flirting with every drake who has a pulse!
Leaving the ducklings alone, and bleating for their mum.

And me, of course, having to pack the lil fluffy ones up, take them inside cancel my plans for the next few weeks, and raise them for her....
lying deceitful Duck that she turned out to be...

It may be too soon to say, but it appears broody hen has abandoned her nest and rejoined the rest of the ducks! It's been 3 days since a new egg, and we've been collecting her eggs as she went along but we hadn't gotten as far as destroying the nest like was suggested. But today she is back to roaming the yard with the rest of the ducks! Let's just hope she doesn't find a new hiding place - this duck has been our little miss independent who likes to go off and hide. This will be the third nest she's given up on this summer...

 

[Miss Lydia]

I like that description fits som of them to a tee matter of fact I let one of my Muscovy females have eggs a couple years ago after many seasons of taking her eggs away and she’d brood on nothing she was an awesome brooder and was a great mama but on their third week of being hatched she was tired of it all and would go out and leave hers. Thankfully I had a first time momthat hatched some of the same duck eggs (Runners and Buffs) and these little ducklings she took under her wings and never looked backed stayed with them all till 6 weeks old. That’s my kind of broody and mama

 

[Kimmyh51]

She’s a Muscovy, she’ll be on and off broody for the rest of her life. If you don’t want her to hatch eggs then destroy the nest. Removing ducklings the day they hatch would cause major stress on the mother.

Agreed, I first got into ducks after rescuing ducklings and their mums who were hatching them mid winter.
And that was after seeing one duck whose ducklings were all killed by something at only a few days old. She spent week so after that calling for them all day at the stream on the property where the ducks tended to take their new ducklings. It was heartbreaking.
Also had another who only had one hatch, and it kept joining a large clutch with a mother duck who had about ten of her own and half a dozen others of various ages that she adopted, and one evening the duckling went off with this other duck and the mother was wandering around calling it from sunset at around 6pm through till 3.30am . She only stopped at 3 when I managed to catch up her and put her in one of my duck runs for the rest of the night (she'd been wandering outside the runs calling loudly -also outside my bedroom window) as she could hear another duck I had in there with ducklings and I am pretty sure she was convinced I'd stolen her duckling. But anyway the look of utter despair on her face when she was trying to find her little one...
The following morning I located the duckling and reunited them, and put them in a run for a few days to allow the duckling to imprint property on the right mum, and that mummy duck just sat and stared into the eyes of her baby for a good hr after I put them in there, so besotted and relieved to be back with her child.
Through rescuing ducks I encountered mummy ducks who were clearly terrified of me as a perceived predator. yet these ducks without hesitation were totally willing to attack a creature many times their size, knowing that creature was more than capable of killing them. Yet they don't hesitate for a moment inputting their own lives on the line to defend their babies against a massive predator who they have no hope of beating...
Those ducks make me feel that every duck who has sat on a nest, gone hungry, thirsty, been afraid of predators, and hatched out ducklings, has every right to raise them and unless it was the only way to keep the ducklings safe, I never take them off their mum.

Of course I'm flat broke as a result!

 

[Miss Lydia]

But your a hero too

 

[Kimmyh51]

I like that description fits som of them to a tee matter of fact I let one of my Muscovy females have eggs a couple years ago after many seasons of taking her eggs away and she’d brood on nothing she was an awesome brooder and was a great mama but on their third week of being hatched she was tired of it all and would go out and leave hers. Thankfully I had a first time momthat hatched some of the same duck eggs (Runners and Buffs) and these little ducklings she took under her wings and never looked backed stayed with them all till 6 weeks old. That’s my kind of broody and mama

I've had mallards thatadopted other ducks, and the amount of people that told me you can't get a duck to take ducklings it didn't hatch.... but some will.

Had this mallard girl I found one night, don't know what happened to her but she couldn't walk or fly, and her mate had left her in the paddock next to me sitting there alone. So I put her in a house and gave her food and pain relief and after a little while she started to recover. Then her mate would hang around outside the run she was in, and she was clearly desperate to see him, so I'd let him in in the mornings, and they would spend the day together, then at night I'd let him out and he flew off where all the wild ducks went over the road to roost. And she would go into her wee night time house. Next morning he would be waiting outside to join her in the run.

Anyway one thing led to another, as it does, and next thing she was on a nest, mostly recovered, but still a little weak, and I figured if I took the eggs away she would prob carry on laying and she didn't have the physical resources to lay indefinitely. And if I released her, she'd go nest elsewhere, and she wasn't in good enough condition to cope with sitting on a nest and only having that short time they get off each day to forage for food. Plus her legs were still a bit iffy at that point.
So I decided to let her sit where she was so I could feed her and the ducklings when they arrived, plus keep them in a run so she didn't have to be walking all over with them.

she hatched out 4 ducklings but something was wrong with them, they were all weak and within a few days all died. I knew the moment the last one died because of the calling she started doing. afterward, this duck was devastated, depressed, and calling to any duckling she heard.

So I decided to try and give her some to adopt, contacted the local bird rescue and luckily they had a clutch of ducklings only a day younger than hers, who they assured me she would NOT accept... So I promised to raise them myself if that happened, picked them up a day later, and brought them back.

I put two in with her, and she would call at them, like a mum, but turn away if they approached, and peck, but not full on like a duck will who is like "you ain't my babies" she was very careful not to hurt them. and as soon as they backed off she was watching them.
So I kept an eye on them for an hr, and by then she was allowing them to approach her, and I swear she gave me this look as if to say
" I know they aren't mine, and I know what you are doing....but I think I'm gonna let you do it anyway..."
An hr after that one was standing on her back, and from then on, woe betide anyone who went near them! A neighbour who she knew well went near her to collect some ducklings that had wandered from their mum, and ended up with a large bleeding cut above his eye lol.
I had to move soon after that, and so I took her and the wee ones with me, they all settled in well in the new place and she raised them until they were juvenilles and flying....aggressively defending them the whole time...
(Once they were grown she absconded with the mate of another duck, a drake she had apparently found completely repulsive then changed her mind).

And there was another wild mallard who had this amazing collection of ducklings of all ages, shapes and sizes. Any duckling that came near her she would happily adopt. Every day her clutch was bigger than the day before. This went on for weeks and weeks.

I've also had a drake who came and spent every day with his mates ducklings that I was looking after, after she died till they were about 7 or 8 weeks old. He always looked so uncomfortable and unsure of himself as a drake trying to be a parent, but he stuck at it.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Aww what sweet stories I love to do bird rescue but we just aren’t set up for it we live on the side of a mountain and don’t have much in the way of flat land to do building all of our 4 coops are right here by our house. I do like it like that though much easier to hear any kind of ruckus going on out there. But I think it’s great that you can do it And others too. Please share more are your from Ireland? I don’t hear wee much unless it’s an Irishman sharing.