Hello! I have quite a few questions as we are fairly new to having ducks (we have 4, 1 mallard and 3 pekins)
We have owned them a little over a year and were told it would probably be unlikely to see a broody duck care for a nest long enough to hatch but when our mallard started the process we decided to see what would happen.
We are now 27 days into that today. She started with 15 eggs. But over the last couple days the number has dropped down to 8 or 9 from what we can tell. There are no signs of broken shells. Where could these eggs have gone? Do mother ducks clear out eggs they know won't hatch? Or are we more likely looking at a predator of some kind?
Her nest in our coop which is far out in the back yard right where our woods begin. The routine since we got them has been that the coop doors remain open daily so they have free access to our large pond all day and then we close up the coop at dusk. This has worked fine for the adult ducks but obviously isn't very safe for her ducklings.
Provided we have any hatch here in the next couple days should we move the mother duck and her babies to a new coop much closer to our house? Would it be alright to move them all like that as they hatch as long as we keep her with them?
Last one... we noticed an abundance of flies in the coup today. My husband found maggots on one of the eggs in the nest. Is this a normal occurrence? Should we remove that egg? By the time he discovered that mama duck had come back to the nest from a quick break at the pond and got right back on the nest and started hissing at us so we left it alone.
Any advice will would me much appreciated! We are very new to this as you can see haha and I just want to do the right things for mom and her babies.
We have owned them a little over a year and were told it would probably be unlikely to see a broody duck care for a nest long enough to hatch but when our mallard started the process we decided to see what would happen.
We are now 27 days into that today. She started with 15 eggs. But over the last couple days the number has dropped down to 8 or 9 from what we can tell. There are no signs of broken shells. Where could these eggs have gone? Do mother ducks clear out eggs they know won't hatch? Or are we more likely looking at a predator of some kind?
Her nest in our coop which is far out in the back yard right where our woods begin. The routine since we got them has been that the coop doors remain open daily so they have free access to our large pond all day and then we close up the coop at dusk. This has worked fine for the adult ducks but obviously isn't very safe for her ducklings.
Provided we have any hatch here in the next couple days should we move the mother duck and her babies to a new coop much closer to our house? Would it be alright to move them all like that as they hatch as long as we keep her with them?
Last one... we noticed an abundance of flies in the coup today. My husband found maggots on one of the eggs in the nest. Is this a normal occurrence? Should we remove that egg? By the time he discovered that mama duck had come back to the nest from a quick break at the pond and got right back on the nest and started hissing at us so we left it alone.
Any advice will would me much appreciated! We are very new to this as you can see haha and I just want to do the right things for mom and her babies.
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