Newly hatched ducklings accidently smothered by mothers?

[Kimmyh51]

This seaso, I have had a few instances where apparently healthy newly hatched ducklings died. Each time I have found the duckling well under the mother duck, in fact so well under mummy duck that it looks Tom as if it may have accidentally smothered. This has happened with several different clutches hatched by several different ducks. Each mother duck has gone i on be a perfectly good mother to her other ducklings and shown no signs of wanting to attack her ducklings.
None of the dead ducklings were injured, and all died within 12 hrs of hatching...
To me it looks like they simply got smothered by accident and died of suffocation. I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this?

 

[casportpony]

Sorry this happened to you, but to answer your question, yes, I have seen that here too.

 

[Hybridchucks]

How awful....sorry for your loss....