Old fashioned Broody Thread for Ducks

[Miss Lydia]

My Muscovy Faith is sitting on 2 eggs, she started with more but only 2 have made it this far, her hatch day is July 8th.

 

[stonykill]

My Muscovy Faith is sitting on 2 eggs, she started with more but only 2 have made it this far, her hatch day is July 8th.

congrats! isn't this her 2nd time this year?!

 

[Miss Lydia]

congrats! isn't this her 2nd time this year?!

Nope. Emmie, Ruthie and Alice have hatched ducklings this will be Faiths first time. It's just that 35 days is a long time it just seems like it's her second time.

probably to her too.

 

[PetesMom]

Nope. Emmie, Ruthie and Alice have hatched ducklings this will be Faiths first time. It's just that 35 days is a long time it just seems like it's her second time.

probably to her too.

So exciting! My Eliza is sitting on 16 for her first time....7 or 8 are fertile!! 2 more weeks to go! And Ellie is parttime sitting on 12 so far...this is her second time going broody. The first time was last month (her eggs were actually due to hatch june 29th) and about a week or so before hatch date she abandoned the nest.

 

[soapergrl]

Here is the mom and ducklings. There is 8 right now I think a few were under her. She is still sitting on 2 eggs. Earlier I was having a terrible time trying to make a home made incubator and decided to forget it. Then a week later she started sitting.
I'm keeping a board between them and the male. He can see them but has too big a bum to get in. lol He seems to just watch them.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Here is the mom and ducklings. There is 8 right now I think a few were under her. She is still sitting on 2 eggs. Earlier I was having a terrible time trying to make a home made incubator and decided to forget it. Then a week later she started sitting.
I'm keeping a board between them and the male. He can see them but has too big a bum to get in. lol He seems to just watch them.

Aww precious, Congrats!!!

 

[ducklover700]

they're all so cute. Good luck to all those that have new broodies, too. I hatched out some Anconas, and I'm really hoping I'll have someone go broody for me next year. I have a harlequin, so maybe she'll set on them for me.

 

[BlackberryAcres]

Hi all! I'm so glad to have found this thread! I have a mallard who went broody in the brooding room, so we got her some silver appleyard eggs (8 hr round trip to get them!) since I'm not sure that her eggs are fertile (the drake is a cayuga, and he definitely mates with her) and our attempt at incubating silver appleyards did not go so well earlier this year. We got 13 eggs, I gave her 6 and the other 7 are waiting to go into the incubator, and now that we have power again that can be soon! Although I'm wondering if they're still okay after just sitting on the counter for 4 days during the power outage. . .

Anyway, the mallard has some of her own eggs in the nest as well, at least 2. When I checked in on her today, I could see a couple through a space in her wing- she's trying to cover them all but she's a small duck! It HAS been hot, and the bedding in there stays pretty warm since we've had a batch of guineas and two groups of ducklings in the room and I've mostly been taking out the wet bedding and just stirring/adding new wood chips with the rest. Do I need to take some eggs away from her or is it possible they'll all be okay? I could try candling them next week since they'll be at about the 10 day stage then and just take out the ones that seem infertile? She doesn't get off the nest much, I have her blocked in so the rest of the ducks and guineas won't bother her. The room is a bit smaller than 6 x 4. If I go in and she gets off and yells at me, and I candle them, she won't decide to stop sitting on them, will she?

We also have a cayuga hen who has decided to go broody in my straw-mulched potatoes. I've just been taking the eggs as I see her lay them, it would be nice if she did it somewhere safe so I could give her the rest of the silver appleyard eggs so I didn't have to worry about the incubator! I don't think the garden is preadator safe, however, seeing as how she snuck in there.

My plan was to move the mallard and her ducklings into the duck tractor-turned permanent house (because I designed it too big

) after they are all hatched and a few days old, because we have too many drakes in the main bird barn. I'm wondering if I could try to entice the cayuga to go broody in the tractor by spreading straw all over the sand floor, but then she'd get really upset if I moved the mallard and her ducklings over, right? Might just be easier to try incubating them. . .

Thanks!!! Reading this thread has been very helpful!

 

[PlumTuckered]

This year I decided to let my duck gals do their thing. My Mallard gals are 2 yrs old, my Muscovy gals are 15 months old. So far Bleeny and Cocoa (Scovies) have hatched out 29 babies. I kept 4 (2 from each of them) and gave the other's away once they were 10 weeks old. Willow the scovy hen is on her first nest due to hatch any day now, she started with 10 eggs, tossed 3 out at 2 weeks and a skunk ran in and destroyed 2 eggs a couple of nights ago (right at dusk about five minutes before I got out there to lock up the houses). Bleeny tried to go broody again (she already hatched 2 nests this year) but I took her eggs away and she's mad at me. Molly the mallard is on her mallard/scovy mix eggs and I'm hoping they hatch any day now. Lilbit the Mallard hid her nest in some bushes and refuses to use the duck houses, she had been on her nest 2 weeks and something got in and got all of her eggs night before last so she's in a bad mood right now.

Michelle

 

[Miss Lydia]

This year I decided to let my duck gals do their thing. My Mallard gals are 2 yrs old, my Muscovy gals are 15 months old. So far Bleeny and Cocoa (Scovies) have hatched out 29 babies. I kept 4 (2 from each of them) and gave the other's away once they were 10 weeks old. Willow the scovy hen is on her first nest due to hatch any day now, she started with 10 eggs, tossed 3 out at 2 weeks and a skunk ran in and destroyed 2 eggs a couple of nights ago (right at dusk about five minutes before I got out there to lock up the houses). Bleeny tried to go broody again (she already hatched 2 nests this year) but I took her eggs away and she's mad at me. Molly the mallard is on her mallard/scovy mix eggs and I'm hoping they hatch any day now. Lilbit the Mallard hid her nest in some bushes and refuses to use the duck houses, she had been on her nest 2 weeks and something got in and got all of her eggs night before last so she's in a bad mood right now.

Michelle

Wow you have had a busy first part of the season. Congrats on all the hatches and those to come, sorry about the preds getting the eggs but at least mama made it out alive.