Moving a broody duck on a nest

[Windsor]

In another corner, we have two droody ducks that are sitting on two nests. When I bought them, I was told we could wait until they hatched to move them. Due to circumstances, we had to move them yesterday. What a Fiasco! First one stayed on the nest until I had it out of the housing, I put it and her into a large wooden box and trucked her across the street and put her in the barn. Bad thing is I did spot a bad egg - and it got busted. Cleaned it up as much as possible, but she was already too upset.

Trip number two was more interesting. We had a broody chicken to pick up too. She was already in a box - but as the previous owner said, all her eggs are bad. She stayed on until I went into the hay storage where the duck was sitting. Then she hopped off and then I heard a Pop! Shortly after another one popped. Yup, bad. So we tossed her box and just picked her up.

The duck was wandering around when we got to her nest. I didn't see any bad eggs this time. But boy was she upset! We put her in the box and then trucked it all to the barn. There, I found duck #1 still upset and not sitting. She eventually got moved tot he pasture. The chicken took her eggs. Duck #2 was sitting, but not very effectively. When I left and came back, she had pushed the chicken off her nest, and the chicken was just sitting on the straw. I finished the swap. By morning, Duck # 2 had done the swap again. Chicken didn't need help. Noticed Duck #1 was looking a bit lonely and stand offish, put her back in with the other two and she sat on three newly laid eggs. In the afternoon, one of them push the chicken off again. I put in a divider to allow the chicken some peace.

All have nests, though, I don't know who is on whose eggs anymore.

There was an alternative, pull all the eggs and put them in the incubator. Which I considered, but after our piping bird died, I though it best to let the mothers try to finish what they started.

Mike

 

[mickt]

hey mike i have tried this in the past an it very rarely works most of the time it upsets them to much and they wont sit on a new nest i would put them in the incubator

 

[Birdcrazy]

Sounds like a bit of a hassle! Hopefully you get ducklings still. I had to move my muscovy and her nest once. As the ducklings began to hatch there was a bit of a desperate tiger snake who kept trying to slip into the nest. I couldnt get rid of it and due to have plans for the day had to grab the nest and mum duck and move them both back to the backyard house area - which is where she used to live. Things went good and bad, although she mucked around in the pond and ate bugs out of the garden, completely ignoring her nest of hatching ducklings, when they all were out she did let them sleep under her occasionally. I did end up taking them away and putting them in a brooder due to her lacking of interest which was a shame - but overall I couldn't risk leaving them with a poisonous snake and an angry mum duck :\\

 

[Windsor]

So far we've gotten one chick and five ducklings - all from the chicken. One duck would never settle down, so into the pasture she went. The other one is very protective of her eggs, but we haven't seen or heard anything from her nest.

Mike