Muscovy hatching duck *and* chicken eggs

[LaynaDon95]

Would it be possible to give a broody Muscovy hen duck eggs, then a couple weeks later, slip some chicken eggs under her so that she hatched chicks and ducklings?

 

[jak2002003]

I might work, but you would have to make sure the hatching data was 100 per cent accurate. Then you will have problems with the different needs of ducklings and chicks. The ducklings will swim and get wet and then snuggle to the chicks and make them wet and messy.....maybe then they will get too cold. Also they need different food. Ducklings can not eat the medicated chick feed as if will make them sick.

If you took away the chicks after they hatched and raised them in a brooder, leaving the ducklings with the duck, then that would be better.

 

[LaynaDon95]

That was my plan, to take the chicks away when they hatched. It seems mean to me to let a duck hatch out chicks and then take them all away, but I don't need that many ducklings. And plus, it means I don't have to incubate the eggs! I don't even have a duck yet, but I'm getting them this week. They will be Muscovies, so I know they will go broody at some point. My plan was to figure out the exact hatch date, let her sit on a few duck eggs, then when it's time slip chicken eggs under her as well. When they hatch, take the chicks and brood them myself, but leave the ducklings with her. That way I get more chickens with very little work from me, but she gets to keep her babies, too. The feed isn't a problem, because I don't feed my chicks medicated feed. I just didn't know if she would be able to incubate both kinds of eggs at once.

 

[ariel4birds]

I once had a duck hatch chicken eggs! It doesn't work quit as well as a chicken hatching duck eggs. But a few chicken eggs did hatch. They attempted to follow the mom and the other ducklings around and within minutes got stuck in the mud! I had to rescue them and give them a bath. After that I decided that I was going to have to remove them from the care of the mother duck. They obviously weren't cut out for the life of a duck!

 

[Miss Lydia]

I once had a duck hatch chicken eggs! It doesn't work quit as well as a chicken hatching duck eggs. But a few chicken eggs did hatch. They attempted to follow the mom and the other ducklings around and within minutes got stuck in the mud! I had to rescue them and give them a bath. After that I decided that I was going to have to remove them from the care of the mother duck. They obviously weren't cut out for the life of a duck!

 

[LaynaDon95]

I once had a duck hatch chicken eggs! It doesn't work quit as well as a chicken hatching duck eggs. But a few chicken eggs did hatch. They attempted to follow the mom and the other ducklings around and within minutes got stuck in the mud! I had to rescue them and give them a bath. After that I decided that I was going to have to remove them from the care of the mother duck. They obviously weren't cut out for the life of a duck!

lol Poor little guys. That's why I would brood them myself. I can't imagine a chick doing well in say, a swimming pool...