Should I give duck duckling?

[chickens really]

Your interference might be stressing her right out....Leave her alone...

 

[chickens really]

Ducks and all mothers ready to become mothers need quiet and privacy...

 

[Bills vs Beaks]

How long has she been sitting?

 

[Hybridchucks]

She is still sitting on the eggs, but comes out for me to feed her worms and swim in the pond. The eggs are cold though and the babies don't appear to be moving inside of the eggs.

Are you gonna do it? Sounds like she still wants to be a momma!

Ps sorry about babies, have you candled them?

 

[Hybridchucks]

How long has she been sitting?

We did it at the same time again LOL (i am such a slow writer! xx)

 

[cityducks]

We lost our drake at the end of March. I noticed her sitting on the nest a few days after he passed. We did candle them, and there is a fully formed duckling, but it's not moving.

 

[cityducks]

Our ducks are pets. Very domestic. I feed her worms on the nest every morning and give her a good rub (she likes it). She gets rattled when my husband was working on the duck house, but not when I'm around.

 

[cityducks]

She has 40 acres of free run, a pond, and plenty of privacy in a low stress environment. It's been since the end of March since her buddy passed away. We didn't start getting involved until yesterday when we candled the eggs and saw that most were without duck, but there were a few and they are not moving and are cold. She got out and ran around for hours yesterday, but then returned to the nest last night.

 

[cityducks]

So . . . she's been sitting since the end of March. That said, she hasn't had a companion duck since the end of March either. Only about half of the eight eggs are fertilized or have anything but liquid in them.

 

[Pyxis]

If you do think the eggs are dead, you could try giving her a duckling. Sometimes they will accept them - I had a friend that just gave an incubator hatched baby to a mother with other babies and she took it eagerly.

It would be best to do it at night when she is sleeping. Swap out the eggs for the newly hatched ducklings and when she wakes up she will hopefully think they hatched under her overnight and accept them.

Be prepared though that she may reject them and you might have to raise them yourself, or there is the small chance that she might attack them Make sure you are also giving her a very young duckling that is still young enough to imprint on her.