Too many eggs?

[rnrmwilson]

I was given two male and one female rouens. I just love them! They have adjusted well and the female made herself a nice little nest and has been laying eggs in her nest and sitting on them all evening and all night until about noon everyday. About 2 weeks ago she was up to 19 eggs and that's when she started sitting on them. So I expected around a month and we would have little ducklings running around.
Well, yesterday I got the opportunity to check on the nest again and there were 37 eggs! I don't know if they'll hatch or if I should be expecting to have any ducklings at all at this point? Is she just an overachiever? I'm so confused.

 

[Duck Drover]

I had a duck sit on too many eggs before and nothing hatched so I would suggest keeping the clutch to a number she can cover. Ducks will stop laying to sit on a nest but other ducks will lay in the nest and the hen will take them under her. She is being overly ambitious so you will need to set a limit for her. The difficult part is knowing if any eggs have started developing because you want the ones she keeps to hatch together.

You can mark the eggs under her to spot any new additions once she has a nest started. If you have an incubator you can put the remaining eggs in the incubator and later candle the eggs in the nest and the ones in the incubator to be sure the eggs under the hen are developing together.

 

[rnrmwilson]

Ok so at this point, she has too many. But I don't know what is new and what is not and we don't have an incubator so should I just a it and see what happens?

 

[Duck Drover]

You can use a flashlight to candle the eggs. Take away anything with abnormal development and large air cells without development. Leave anything with veining and watch for staggered development because you will need to finish late hatchers in an incubator of some kind to finish them or else you will lose them. I suspect most of the eggs are bad already and will not hatch so see what you are left with to maximize your chance of hatching anything. Mark the eggs you leave so you can collect any new eggs from the nest.