Raising baby duckling at first

[Angeerb]

I have 5 ducks mixed breeds, one is a male. A few of the female ducks started nesting. A few babies have hatched, but they didn't make it. One died very young not sure how. Another looked good, had the yellow down and the mother kept burying it and sitting on it with her other eggs. I thought that maybe that was normal but overnight she smothered him by standing on him. So another one hatched and we decided to take it and raise it. The baby is doing well. We take the baby out to the other ducks to try and socialize him but they are not very accepting. We are only raising ducks as pets. The baby duck is about a week old. I'm not sure how to resocialize the baby duck and if the others will accept him back into their flock. Any ideas?

 

[SolarDuck]

They most likely won't be "friends" with the duckling until it is an adult. You can let him spend a little bit of time out with them, but always supervised.

 

[Angeerb]

Thank you for your response. I let the duckling play outside with my little dog Maddie today while watching them for an hour or so. They get along pretty good. The other ducks came and sat next to us. They like it when I sing to them. Maybe if I do that every day they will adapt over time. It is weird that the other ducklings don't make it if we leave them with the mother. But this is our first batch so maybe the mothers will learn how to be better moms. We raised them from ducklings too so they are a bit spoiled. I will wait till the duckling is a bit bigger to release it back to the flock.