My duck is sitting on chicken eggs

[Brooke Carson]

My duck went broody and stole some chicken eggs and now she's sitting on them and won't let anyone near. Will she actually hatch them? Will she raise them? We have 2 female ducks in with a bunch of chickens and two roosters. Could this work out or will it end badly? We also have one other hen currently brooding eggs of almost the same duration, so we can always steal them from the duck and put them under the hen if we can avoid death-by-broody-duck. But we were curious if the duck has any chance of raising the chickens at all. We also have no duck pond in the chicken run and we just let the ducks out of the run to use the kiddie pool, so if chicks drowning is a concern, there's not access to water like that and we could regulate/schedule her dips in the pool around the kids socializing the chicks or something.

 

[thecatumbrella]

Ok, that's kind of cute.

Personally, I'd put them back under the hen. I have no idea how long a duck is willing to sit for, and I wouldn't trust her to not reject the chicks once they're born.

Why mess around, you know?

As for how to get the eggs, I saw someone on IG using one of those ball tossing sticks for dogs to fish the eggs out from under them.

 

[AshVau22]

My duck just hatched a chicken egg. She lost all her eggs. I had hens setting and one egg was about 5 days behind the others guess someone laid one later so they pretty much left it. So I put it under my duck and took her rotten egg. So far that's her babies.

 

[NatJ]

I have no idea how long a duck is willing to sit for

Most duck eggs take about 28 days to hatch, and a few kinds take longer yet.
That is longer than the 21 days for chicken eggs.

I can't say whether the duck will be bothered by babies that hatch "too early."

I found some older threads asking about ducks on chicken eggs:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/will-a-duck-hatch-and-raise-chicken-eggs.404819/
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/can-a-broody-duck-hatch-a-chicken-egg.34905/
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/ducks-raising-baby-chickens.690443/

I find lots of people wondering, but not many answers. It apparently works fine to have a chicken hatch duck eggs (not your question), and plenty of people worrying about the duck trying to take chicks swimming (something you already considered.) I find one or two stories of a duck killing a just-hatched chick, but that may be due to the specific duck rather than the chick being different than a duckling (there are plenty of stories of chicken hens killing a just-hatched chick, and ducks killing a just-hatched duckling: new mothers sometimes get mixed up, no matter what kind of bird they are.)

The most useful answers I saw came from poster @sourland in two different threads:

in my experience chicks hatched by ducks tend to get stepped on and soaked by duck hens.

Most ducks don't brood their young as much as chickens. The chicks will become wet and chilled.

I don't see any mention of swimming in those posts, so they may refer to ducks splashing water around even when they are drinking. (That's a guess, but ducks do have a reputation for making everything wet.)

We also have one other hen currently brooding eggs of almost the same duration, so we can always steal them from the duck and put them under the hen if we can avoid death-by-broody-duck. But we were curious if the duck has any chance of raising the chickens at all. We also have no duck pond in the chicken run and we just let the ducks out of the run to use the kiddie pool, so if chicks drowning is a concern, there's not access to water like that and we could regulate/schedule her dips in the pool around the kids socializing the chicks or something.

I think the best choice will depend on which is more important to you.

If you want the best chance of live, healthy baby chickens, I would put the chicken eggs under the chicken (as long as the eggs are within a day or so of the same age, counting from when the hen or duck started sitting on them.)

If you want to know what happens with the duck and some baby chickens, you could leave the eggs with the duck. If you do that, please do report back on how it goes, so we can all learn from it!