If you can put a fence or some type of barrier around your hens nesting sight then you won't need to move mom & babies for the first few days after hatch. She will want to move them after that unless you can clean up her old nest sight... it gets pretty nasty w/all of them hatching out. My Scovy broodies will move their babies within 24hr after the last one they expect to hatch does so & is fluffy & dry.
Provide a secured area, (separate pen, shed, dog house,) for mom and babies if possible away fm drakes and non brooding ducks..... well and other broodies IF you have the room for 1-2wks. I don't have the room & if your hatches are close together you end up w/moms poking others ducklings or in my case w/Charlotte (head hen) she steals their babies. Sigh! It does work out well since Charlotte is such a terrific mom and as head hen her ducklings get top ranking in Scovy pecking order.
I provide my broodies w/food & water close by and will give them a treat, like peas, once a day within neck stretching distance.
They hiss at you .... then proceed to gobbble up their peas!
As far as socializing the ducklings, I like my broodies to raise their ducklings as much as possible. They do a huge part of the work of teaching them about danger, what to eat, & introducing them to the flock while protecting them fm harm. I think Silkie Sue had a good plan by putting them into a chicken pen so she could handle them every day. Just remember momma duck will not be happy w/you so you may have to separate her for a bit each day. She does need to be able to see her ducklings or at least not be away fm them for more than an hr or so or she may reject or break her brood early. I had one hen break her brood when her ducklings were only about 3wks old because a drake bred her once to many times. Some momma ducks are better at fending off unwanted attn. than others.
Needless to say, her ducklings were pretty much on their own then. I had another broody that allowed them to tag along w/her & her young'ns though she wasn't real happy about it.
