what to look for when mama duck is caring for hatchlings

[midge5000]

hey folks,
my first khaki campbell egg hatched last night! duckling seems healthy and happy so far.....

since khaki campbells are notorious for not going broody, i keep waiting for mama duck to show signs of not being a good parent. if so, i have a brooder ready and i am well versed in duckling care, when i am doing the actual caring.

what i am wondering is, what exactly am i watching for when mama is left to do her job? for instance, the duckling wasn't under her this morning, but right next to her, snuggling up. is that warm enough? (outside temps are in 60s overnight, high 80s and 90s during the day). mama still has 10 other eggs under her that she is trying to hatch. should i pull the less developed ones so that there is room for her duckling? i have food and water out for the baby when it is ready......at what point do i start to worry if mama hasn't taken the duckling out to eat?

also, i doubt all 11 eggs will hatch. will mama desert her nest before i have to intervene and pull whatever eggs don't hatch? should i intervene after a certain number of days?

any insight welcome. thanks in advance!

 

[jak2002003]

Hi.. If she has sat on the eggs and hatched some ducklings she will take good care of them.. it shows she has the instincts.

My Campbell ducks went broody a lot and reared their own ducklings no problem.. They were free range 24/7 and nested on a small island covered in plants on their small lake. I think they need the more natural setting.. or at least a lot of quiet and privacy to settle down to the job. Your duck must be very happy.

Just watch out for the drakes.. some can try to kill the ducklings.

Ducklings stay out from under the mother for long periods, compared to chicken chicks. They have more fat and better insulation.

Provide proper duckling food.. the mum can eat this too. Good luck!

 

[jak2002003]

Forgot to say...

She will stay on the eggs for about 24 hours after the first ducklings hatches to give the other eggs chance to hatch. If other ducklings have not hatched after this time they are likely infertile eggs, or ducklings have died at some stage.. or are weak and not strong enough to hatch.

You could pop any eggs left in your incubator for another day to see if any more hatch. But the duck will start to incubate all the eggs at the same time.. so really, they all should hatch within several hours of the first duckling.

 

[midge5000]

thanks for the reassurance! she really does seem to be a great mom so far.
that is interesting, about the incubation. all of the eggs are fertile. (i have been candling them every few days because our other two ducks have continued to lay in the nest and i have been removing the new eggs), but some are still a few days away from being ready. i figure that if a duck lays an egg a day, there would be a day between hatchings too, right? or am i using flawed duck logic?
either way, i am going to just enjoy the adventure.

 

[JadeComputerGal]

hey folks,
my first khaki campbell egg hatched last night! duckling seems healthy and happy so far.....

since khaki campbells are notorious for not going broody, i keep waiting for mama duck to show signs of not being a good parent. if so, i have a brooder ready and i am well versed in duckling care, when i am doing the actual caring.

what i am wondering is, what exactly am i watching for when mama is left to do her job? for instance, the duckling wasn't under her this morning, but right next to her, snuggling up. is that warm enough? (outside temps are in 60s overnight, high 80s and 90s during the day). mama still has 10 other eggs under her that she is trying to hatch. should i pull the less developed ones so that there is room for her duckling? i have food and water out for the baby when it is ready......at what point do i start to worry if mama hasn't taken the duckling out to eat?

also, i doubt all 11 eggs will hatch. will mama desert her nest before i have to intervene and pull whatever eggs don't hatch? should i intervene after a certain number of days?

any insight welcome. thanks in advance!

Good comments from @jak2002003 , and I've had mostly the same experience he has. I've never heard of KCs being low on the broodiness scale. I was thinking they were considered average for broodiness. But anyway, my KC (Noelle) was all kinds of broody, it just took her a while. She waited this year until she had laid 18 eggs in her clutch before she started setting reliably. She hatched 15 of them from setting, then stayed on the nest for around a day. The other three still hadn't hatched, so she got up and left those in the nest. We checked those three and found that two were still alive, so we put them in an incubator. It took them another three days to hatch, but they hatched without help.

As far as mothering, she was an exceptionally good mother. The father (Galen) was a Rouen that was a couple of pounds heavier than the KC mother, and they had been extremely bonded all their lives. He didn't even try to mate with any of our other ducks, and he and the Noelle stuck together like glue. They would sometimes even walk around the yard with the wing that was closest to the other one extended a bit so the wing tips were touching. It was so sweet and reminded me of teenagers walking around holding hands.

Things changed considerably after the ducklings hatched. Galen would sometimes go after the ducklings, especially at first. Noelle would go in attack mode and go at him with everything she had even though she was considerably smaller than him. She would run at him, jump on his back, bite, scratch, and stomp on him. He would go off and mope for a while, then rejoin the family on his best behavior. He pretty quickly got to the point that he'd poke at one of the ducklings, look at Noelle, then start running in the opposite direction so he could get a head start on her. The she would chase him in circles around the yard with all the ducklings watching like they were thinking, "Look at mom go!"

 

[jak2002003]

thanks for the reassurance! she really does seem to be a great mom so far.
that is interesting, about the incubation. all of the eggs are fertile. (i have been candling them every few days because our other two ducks have continued to lay in the nest and i have been removing the new eggs), but some are still a few days away from being ready. i figure that if a duck lays an egg a day, there would be a day between hatchings too, right? or am i using flawed duck logic?
either way, i am going to just enjoy the adventure.

No.. because the duck will not start brooding until she has finished laying her clutch of eggs.. this is so they hatch out on the same day.

But, if other ducks have been laying eggs in her nest they will be at different stages.

How many ducklings you got now? Have to put some photos on here!!!!

 

[midge5000]

here is mama with the first two. they are such different colors for both being KCs! when i checked this morning, there were 4 and a half. one little guy just had his head and one foot out. she is still sitting on the nest, surprisingly. she has been incredibly trusting with me, and when i come by to check on everyone, she begrudgingly gets up, but then quickly runs to take a dip in the pond for 15 seconds before she comes back and politely yells at me to beat it. there is water and food right near the nest so she and the babies can eat without leaving the rest of the eggs. the 6th one is hatching now, and it looks like a 7th will start today, if she stays put long enough.

the other ducks are STILL laying eggs in the nest. so this brood must be from all three of them. to be honest, i just kind of got sick of trying to figure out what to do with all the duck eggs (we also have 20 chickens and i prefer chicken eggs) so when she went broody, i let her be and didn't bother her for a while. wheni finally did, there were 25 eggs (so that is what....8ish days for three KCs?). 10 eggs were fertile. and the rest is history.....

i actually got a great video of one hatching yesterday. i'll have to get it on youtube or something so i can post it on here.

 

[midge5000]

here is a video of the third one hatching. i can't believe how lucy i was to catch this!

 

[JadeComputerGal]

here is a video of the third one hatching. i can't believe how lucy i was to catch this!

I love it, love it, love it! Boy do I wish Call ducks hatched that easily!

 

[jak2002003]

So cute... and what a good mother duck too.

Its going to be so nice when you see them all go for a swim with mummy duck.

Nice you got different colours too.. so you can tell them apart.

Maybe good idea to put a feeder and water dish next to the nest for the first duckling to feed if they are getting hungry waiting for the later ones to hatch.