June Hatch-A-Long

Day 18 on my d’uccle, hedemora, and random freebie jungle fowl eggs. :p everyone still looks ok, movement in all eggs, a couple of the d’uccles are starting to draw down. I did the nail test on these and according to that, I should have 3 pullets and 1 cockerel from the d’uccles, one of each in the hedemora, and the jungle fowl should be a cockerel. We shall see. Lol.
 
Anyone ever have a duck sit on chicken eggs?
Yes, remember my pic of the communal broody pile? Mine sat on turkey eggs even.
Though humidity levels of her body vs a chicken may come onto play.
She can hatch them but most don’t let them brood them as they will try and lead them to water. If she doesn’t have swimming water it is probably okay?
If they hatch I would remove them. Even without the worry of water ducks raise their young so different than chickens. They might not learn to scratch and peck in a normal manner.

The chicken hen I had that raised a duckling tried her very best to teach it how to be a chicken, but while she would show her how to scratch and hunt for food...and all the chick siblings would follow suit, duckling would just stand there dumbfounded...like she was saying "Uh, mom, my feet can't do what your feet do, and I don't have a pointy beak!"

My chicken successfully raised duckling up, a muscovy, but it never really fit in with the other ducks. I kept everyone together in a large flock, but duckling grew up not acting like a duck, but not acting like a chicken either. Neither group wanted her once she was big.
 
Yes, remember my pic of the communal broody pile? Mine sat on turkey eggs even.
Though humidity levels of her body vs a chicken may come onto play.

If they hatch I would remove them. Even without the worry of water ducks raise their young so different than chickens. They might not learn to scratch and peck in a normal manner.

The chicken hen I had that raised a duckling tried her very best to teach it how to be a chicken, but while she would show her how to scratch and hunt for food...and all the chick siblings would follow suit, duckling would just stand there dumbfounded...like she was saying "Uh, mom, my feet can't do what your feet do, and I don't have a pointy beak!"

My chicken successfully raised duckling up, a muscovy, but it never really fit in with the other ducks. I kept everyone together in a large flock, but duckling grew up not acting like a duck, but not acting like a chicken either. Neither group wanted her once she was big.
Wow poor girl!
 
Wow poor girl!
Yeah. I always felt so bad for her.

The only reason this happened was because a first time broody duck picked a very bad place for her brood nest and when I tried to move it she about ripped my face off. All I could do was watch as one by one eggs got broken until this was the last egg.
The night she pipped was super cold for July, down to 45, and when I went on barn check that night mom had kicked this last egg across the barn and was gone. I picked the cold egg up figuring it was long gone and was shocked when it wiggled in my hand. I ran back to the house and one very long night with a warm light bulb, a pair of tweezers, and a whole lot of patience produced one exhausted little duckling. She lived in the house for a few days until she was stronger, but I had no other ducklings so figured this might be a viable option.... not thinking about long term behavior.

Nobody actively picked on her, but she never took to water or behaved like a typical duck.

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No external pips yet, but now theres 4 internal pips! Hoping we have chicks tomorrow afternoon!

We cleaned out all the coops and I did the quails aviary with some fake plants, hideaways, and fresh pine shavings. The 14 2 week olds were put in there with my older ones. I will not be keeping them all as breeders. Some will be for meat.
 

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