The Countdown is ON :)

[tull14]

So I posted about a week ago (forgive me, I don't know how to change post title to reflect an edit or update). But I posted that my son and I found a little nest on August 19th but there was only one egg in the nest at that point. My son (3 years old) couldn't leave the egg alone so we took it from the nest. Went back a couple of days later there were no more eggs. So without my son I looked a little harder for eggs, nest found! About every other day I would go check the nest and count the eggs. At my last count which was I believe Friday August 30th the count was 11 eggs (we found 3 in the yard and added them). Hadn't been out to check on the nest since Friday due to crazy work schedule, but I went out today to check it and count eggs and my little broody mallard mommy is sitting finally!!! So I'm not totally sure how many eggs her clutch ended up being but I'm pretty excited to let the countdown begin to "D" day!!! For mallards it's roughly 28-30 days from what I've read. I've been finding other eggs randomly in my yard though is that weird? We have a total of 13 ducks, 11 mallards (7 hens and 4 drakes) and a male and female pekin. So not sure whose been dropping them off in the yard but I picked two up today. Here are some pictures of what I picked up, they look fertilized to me but I'll ask an expert opinion

That little white dot would that be the embryo or am I totally not getting it?


This is the whole egg I found

 

[Veer67]

The white dot is called a white bullseye, it indicates that an egg is fertilized

 

[tull14]

The white dot is called a white bullseye, it indicates that an egg is fertilized

Yes that is what I was hoping for I'm hoping that we get some babies in about a month!!! This is my first time with ducks we got these in March right before Easter and I wasn't really expecting anything until next year but hey I love the little guys I'll take it!!!

 

[Veer67]

Good luck on hatching them!

I once bought 5 fertilized chicken eggs and 1 duck egg, apparently my broody hen was clumsy and cracked most of them except for 2 chicken eggs and one duck egg. I tried incubating them but I guess the bacteria already got inside of them and none of the chicks hatched, though I did crack the duck egg to discover that there was one almost fully developed gray colored duckling.

 

[tull14]

Thank you! I have never hatched anything in my life so I don't really know what to do when the babies come (if they do) Do I need to separate them from the rest of the flock or should I take them from the mom and bring them inside? I really am clueless and I hope that someone here can help me in that aspect. I have plenty of room for the other ducks but I don't know how to separate them and let mama still go out and free range when she wants. These babies will have to stay inside until they are bigger, we have 2 huge owls that live in trees and hawks fox and eagles that will scoop up my babies in a heart beat. I just don't know what to do about that!

 

[Veer67]

I know that you should separate a broody chicken with eggs from the rest of the flock because sometimes other hens with step on the eggs or kill the furry little intruders that hatch out. If you want to raise the ducklings then you could raise them without a broody hen, but in your case raising them yourself seems to be easier.