Single Egg under Broody Chook

[SchmidtChicks]

Ok, so it's been a while since I was on here last. And I wanted some insight-

We have a broody pekin bantam hen currently sitting on a single, fertile Muscovy Egg that is expected to hatch within the week. I cannot leave said duckling with her once it hatches, because our other chickens are a mixed batch from 8.5 weeks to 9 months and about half of them are serious bullies to smaller creatures...
(And I cannot separate her because we have no where to put her currently. Every enclosure is in use)

Will a lone duckling, if given all the time in the world with us, be alright? Like, we are home all day everyday and have means to house it warm and safe with us all the time.

We do have a 1 week old Toulouse x Gosling who follows me everywhere, BUT according to the lady we got it off of, it has killed ducklings and chicks in the brooder by accident so I don't want to risk that happening.

I know our Pekin Bantam will go broody again, after being sad her baby is gone, but we now have 3 hens with a rooster who should give us fertile eggs for the next time around.

And our muscovy hen "Jelly" isn't due to hatch her eggs for another 33+ days as she only just decided to sit on 8-10 (we tried to keep numbers down so she can successfully hatch at least 3 or so).

*Chicky sitting gracefully and determinedly on her Duck Egg

*Chicky's egg on day 24 - looked to be developing well, Air Sac has grown since and day 28 looked like a very dark egg, minimal space to move, prepping to hatch 4th Nov

*Pogo and Jelly protecting their first attempt at babies

*Punter our 1 week old Toulouse x Gosling

 

[DobieLover]

Ok, so it's been a while since I was on here last. And I wanted some insight-

We have a broody pekin bantam hen currently sitting on a single, fertile Muscovy Egg that is expected to hatch within the week. I cannot leave said duckling with her once it hatches, because our other chickens are a mixed batch from 8.5 weeks to 9 months and about half of them are serious bullies to smaller creatures...
(And I cannot separate her because we have no where to put her currently. Every enclosure is in use)

Will a lone duckling, if given all the time in the world with us, be alright? Like, we are home all day everyday and have means to house it warm and safe with us all the time.

We do have a 1 week old Toulouse x Gosling who follows me everywhere, BUT according to the lady we got it off of, it has killed ducklings and chicks in the brooder by accident so I don't want to risk that happening.

I know our Pekin Bantam will go broody again, after being sad her baby is gone, but we now have 3 hens with a rooster who should give us fertile eggs for the next time around.

And our muscovy hen "Jelly" isn't due to hatch her eggs for another 33+ days as she only just decided to sit on 8-10 (we tried to keep numbers down so she can successfully hatch at least 3 or so).

View attachment 2393269
*Chicky sitting gracefully and determinedly on her Duck Egg

View attachment 2393271View attachment 2393272View attachment 2393273
*Chicky's egg on day 24 - looked to be developing well, Air Sac has grown since and day 28 looked like a very dark egg, minimal space to move, prepping to hatch 4th Nov

View attachment 2393274View attachment 2393275
*Pogo and Jelly protecting their first attempt at babies

View attachment 2393277View attachment 2393278
*Punter our 1 week old Toulouse x Gosling

Why do you think that the broody will not protect "her" duckling when it hatches?
She will not allow the younger members of the flock anywhere near her duckling. That is they way broodies work. I assume you have the flock on an All Flock or Flock Raiser type of diet.

 

[SchmidtChicks]

Why do you think that the broody will not protect "her" duckling when it hatches?
She will not allow the younger members of the flock anywhere near her duckling. That is they way broodies work. I assume you have the flock on an All Flock or Flock Raiser type of diet.

The young ones have access to suitable feed through a gap the bigger girls can't fit- sadly most our chickens are way bigger than mama hen, and they tend to gang up when they want too. As they did when we first introduced everyone- our Silkie is bottom of the pecking order, and if mama hen wasnt in the box most the time (she was there when we introduced 2 new Isa's), she'd probably be the same as they dual pick to be top hens together.

I just want to know if it would be suitable to house the little one inside, if I could replace it with chicks I would to let her have babies, but I thought she was sitting on all infertile chooks eggs until we spotted the duck egg after it had already developed a few weeks and no where to incubate elsewhere.

She had it hidden at the far back of her box where we couldnt reach to see- always thought we had gotten all eggs out to break the brood and clearly didn't succeed with her determined-ness.

 

[SchmidtChicks]

So our little egg externally pipped last night, and had zipped by morning- we've had to remove mother hen, her box, and the egg to a separate pen as I found the egg at 6AM tossed into the chicken run, an anxious mama kicked from her box, and a very Angry flared up bigger hen making sure she couldn't get back in.

Once we moved them- we waited an hour and checked the egg. We did have to assist the egg in finalising its hatch, because of being outside it had dried to the shell and couldn't strip free.

Lets say Baby Duck was very happy to be out and is buried underneath Mama Hen until they are both ready to come out.

We will have to work out what to do next as we do not have another pen to put them in, and this one is only big enough for probably a week at most, free ranging isn't an option due to our Muscovy Drake, along with hawks / crows / happy jacks who will pick on anything smaller than them.