The Broody Duck Thread for 2014

[cochinfan05]

Hello all. Here's a question. I have 3 fawn and white runner hens and one drake. A little over a week ago I stopped finding eggs in there normal laying area (flower garden right in front of house). Then a couple days after that one of the hens was missing in the morning. Low and behold I finally find her under a pile of old brush way out back. Since her and another female are half heartedly sitting for a few hours in the morning and during the night. It seems they're warming up to becoming broody but from what I can see (which isn't much) there are alot of eggs in this nest. 15? I'm not sure what to do. Any involvement I have is going to be minimal unless I move the nest to a different area but I don't want to upset them to much either. Any advice would be much appreciated! PS. Loving all the duckling pics

 

[lbrykowski2011]

Thanks Miss Lydia for all ur help and advice and others. Sure is gonna be a long month

 

[merrymegseggs]

Has anyone experienced this?
Our rescued mallard duck is sat (1wk in) on 12 eggs in the duck house. We have 2 other ducks (1silver appleyard & 1 Cayuga) & 2silver appleyard drakes. This afternoon we witnessed the mallard duck come running out of the duck house carrying an egg and the 2 drakes chasing her to mount her. Obviously the egg was lost. She has gone back to her nest and the others seem fine but don't want this to happened again.
Should we move her or try and fence her off from the others?

 

[Miss Lydia]

Has anyone experienced this?
Our rescued mallard duck is sat (1wk in) on 12 eggs in the duck house. We have 2 other ducks (1silver appleyard & 1 Cayuga) & 2silver appleyard drakes. This afternoon we witnessed the mallard duck come running out of the duck house carrying an egg and the 2 drakes chasing her to mount her. Obviously the egg was lost. She has gone back to her nest and the others seem fine but don't want this to happened again.
Should we move her or try and fence her off from the others?

I would give her some space of her own and for about 3 weeks after the ducklings hatch. keep her where they can all see each other and when ducklings hatch they will be accepted into the flock easier. It just makes it easier on the broody and her ducklings and safer too. One of my Muscovy drakes has to go into jail when I can't watch him because every time one of the broody's comes out he thinks it's okay to jump her. I have a dog X pen that i use to keep him confined till she goes back inside.

 

[merrymegseggs]

So would you move her or pen her in her own area? If I pen her in would I need to put a swimming pool in for her alongside her food and water or just open up for supervised outings? Naughty boys!
How about the egg carrying any ideas on that ?

 

[DaisyMeadow]

My rouen duck hen (whom we call "Crazy Mama" due to her constant broody antics) has been sitting on her eggs now for 41 days, so we got her off the nest briefly, pulled the 5 she was on, and substituted 4 muscovy eggs that are due to hatch today or tomorrow. I would hate for her to be disappointed after all that work. Here's hoping she gets at least one duckling out of the deal.

She loves to be a mama!

I candled the eggs she had been sitting on, but didn't open them - especially after candling!

They went right into the failed egg hole.

 

[Miss Lydia]

So would you move her or pen her in her own area? If I pen her in would I need to put a swimming pool in for her alongside her food and water or just open up for supervised outings? Naughty boys!
How about the egg carrying any ideas on that ?

She would not be happy being moved so leave her where she is and you can put some kind of plastic container in there for her to bath in it doesn't have to be a pool just something that she can get wet since that's how they keep the humidity up on the eggs. I haven't ever seen one of mine carry an egg so can't tell ya about that. I've seen them roll them but never carry one. Hopefully someone else can comment o n that. especially since it was viable from what you said.

 

[HollyDuckFarmer]

I had Pekins that moved eggs quite a distance once, and quite a few eggs too. I don't know how they did it, but they did.
@lbrykowski2011 I would leave her alone too. Avoid that broody poop at all costs.
I would not move your broody moms nest either, just remove the drakes.

Sorry @DaisyMeadow

 

[DaisyMeadow]

Sorry @DaisyMeadow

Thanks! It is sad whenever we lose a batch, but I do have 6 goose nests (4 with full time broodies, 2 with part time broodies), as well as probably 6 muscovy nests, one more rouen nest for sure, and then I suspect one ancona nest and one cayuga nest. So I'm about to be overrun with duckies, although I have been selling them just as soon as they hatch and have orders for more. But some of the goose nests have up to 12 eggs, and the muscovy nests I have found have more than 10 in each, too! So a loss of 5 is soon put into perspective. I'm sure she will be happy with whatever she hatches.

Did I mention that one of my turkey hens also went broody recently? She had been sitting on golf balls (we use them to establish nesting areas) so I slipped 5 turkey eggs under her today. Time to start the poult countdown! I hope she has better luck than I've had with hatching poults and keeping them alive.

 

[lbrykowski2011]

So would you move her or pen her in her own area? If I pen her in would I need to put a swimming pool in for her alongside her food and water or just open up for supervised outings? Naughty boys!
How about the egg carrying any ideas on that ?

We just took a piece of fencing and split the run in half. My DH made a little lean too and put a bowl of food and water under it, just in case she comes out to eat. She did not come out and eat today again though. Momma knows best I guess.