She is starting to go broody over her eggs but she won't really sit on them what's the deal with that what can I do to make her sit on them? And people's post some pics of ur ducks heaps plz thanks 8)
Hey how many eggs is she sitting on because she will keep laying eggs until she lays a clutch then she will settle i think as i do not own ducks is she safe and away from predators etc
Top to bottom: Blue pied muscovy hen with her lavender barred drake mate. The drake will sit on her eggs with her when he's in the coop for the night. The nest is simply a cat crate with the door taken off, filled with hay. It's inside my large coop to keep her safe from predators. She plucked her own feathers to add to the nest to help keep the eggs warm Black barred muscovy hen with her 17 babies that hatched, less than a day old. Her nest is in a small 3 sided plywood "house" that I put a piece of plywood on top to protect her from the elements. It's inside a pen to keep her safe from predators. Black pied muscovy hen. Her nest only had 8 eggs in it. It consisted of a blue plastic barrel with one end cut off. Again, hay for bedding and she plucked herself (most hens will). This is a second nest the Black pied hen made a few months after the ducklings hatched. Again, it's in the plywood house. She laid 20 eggs this clutch and 19 of them hatched! If your hen has started to nest, she will get on and off the nest until she has the number she wants. It can be as few as 6 up to as many as 30. Though the more eggs she has, the less chance they will all hatch as large amounts of eggs can't b covered and kept warm. The most I've had them lay and hatch successfully is about 25 eggs with 24 that hatched. Once she has the number of eggs she wants, she will only get off the nest to eat and drink. But you don't always see her do this.
She will "hover" until she feels done laying and ready to incubate. She is keeping eggs at right temp as feels around all with feet bill and body, keeping them so not too cold or warm enough to incubate yet. I worried myself silly checking, and noticed my young first time mom doing what she needed to do (she built her nest on an ant hill which didn't seem to bother her or ducklings, but was good food when ducklings hatched). She layed about twenty to twenty two, but i and guy got from were eating them, she started hiding them, as she hatched twelve, and four didn't hatch from positioning, being to big in egg, and drowning in egg, or something like that, as i helped a few hatch that mamma was trying to help then gave up on and disgarded.
Yep, till she's happy with what she has. Which can be anything from under a hand full, to into the teens even 20's. Best thing you can do is let her be, otherwise she may abandon her nest if she feels threatened BUT what you do have to do is ensure the nest is safe, a nesting duck is a sitting duck and extremely prone to predators.
Yes she is perfectly safe we even have a big aggressive staffie out front of the shed but he loves the chooks and ducks
