Question pg.3:My Aussie Spot duck pushed 3 eggs out...What to do?

[chickenlisa]

Thanks! I'll see. To count them, I have had to pull it out from where it sits in the back of the doghouse to the front so I can reach enough to count them. When she does get out, she's at the other end of the pen where the food is with her hubby (

) so I may get away with it. or maybe not all the way into the house but into the shed adjacent to their pen (where its dark enough to candle probably.) I'll see...everything I read about too many eggs says that the whole hatch can be compromised due to all the eggs being moved daily and ending up too cool overall to hatch.
oh decisions, decisions....

 

[chickenlisa]

ok, I just saw Speckles off of her nest (my daughter named her that...

) so I hurried out there, and pulled the whole bucket out of the dog house and into my shed, candled the eggs (17 still) and found 12 growing ones, veins and tiny embryos visible! Yay! and 5 clear ones...so I took the 5 out, put the bucket back in the doghouse, checked the 5 to be sure (and they were clear with no veins at all) By then, she was going back on her nest.
So from her on out, I'm not touching her, or her nest. I"m going to let her be and see how she does with incubating and hatching them herself. She's just around 1 year old now...maybe not even. I forget when I hatched her last year...I only had the 2 eggs hatch and was so lucky to get 1 boy and 1 girl.
I'll update this topic when anything new happens...As I figure, we're about day 5 or 6 today.

 

[chickenlisa]

today is around day 15 or so, and I saw 3 of her eggs pushed out of the box and onto the dog house floor...I candled 1 of them and thought I saw movement, so I pushed them back in. She got mad and left the nest, but came back after a swim. I looked back in later on and saw the 3 eggs back out. Do you think she knows they are bad or dead or something wrong with them and should I just let them stay out and if they're out over night, get rid of them?
What would you do?

 

[chickenlisa]

ok, so after putting the eggs back in under her again, they stayed until today. I found 1 out of the doghouse (how it got out there I'll never know- it had to go OVER a board at least 5" tall) and 1 in the doghouse on the floor (not in the nest anymore.) The one out in the pen was broken open and just yoke left...the other one I candled and saw a blood ring. They were both duds then and she knew what she was doing., I'll trust her in the future...there are 10 eggs left.

that they grow into ducklings and hatch out in 10 days or so...

 

[kitkatbahr]

Hi Chickenlisa,

I do believe that the mama ducks know when the eggs are "bad" and they get rid of them. I have a Muscovy who is barely a year old and she started on approx. 19 eggs. I say approx. cause I couldn't count them all for sure as she has the nest hidden up under a coop type thing and it is low to the ground so very hard for me to see into. Anyway, she is due to hatch on May 18th, in nine days. She has kicked out 4 eggs so far, over the last two weeks, with the last one day before yesterday. The first three looked like just yolky stuff in them. The last one I actually saw her bring it out from under the hutch. She was carrying it in her beak! She had broken a hole in it and carried it out and laid it carefully on the ground. I could see into the hole and there was a partly developed chick in it. Sad, but I guess she knew it either died, quit growing or something was wrong with it. It was too early for it to be viable. I thought it was fascinating to watch her carry that egg!

So, now I guess she has approx. 15 left to hopefully hatch. I guess we will find out in 9 days. She is a first time mama but she sure seems to know what she is doing.

Good luck with your hatch!

Kathy
Merritt Island, FL

 

[chickenlisa]

"The last one I actually saw her bring it out from under the hutch. She was carrying it in her beak! She had broken a hole in it and carried it out"

Fascinating! I wonder if my duck did that! It had a hole in it too, and would have had to be carried to get over the board I have in front of the doghouse doorway (to keep the bedding in and mud out...)

Good Luck with your hatch too!
In about 12 days or so, I"ll find out what we have here!
Lisa