Will a chicken hatch and brood ducklings?

[DemeterAD9]

Now that my kahki duck has finally laid her first egg, which looked to be fertile when I fried it up, I'm playing with the idea of letting a broody hen hatch some duck eggs for me. I'd much rather let a hen brood ducklings as once was enough for me. They are 10x more messy than chicks!

I have one hen in mind who raised 2 batches of chicks last summer, she did a wonderful job too. My main concern is the length of time she actually cared for her kids. By 4-5 weeks she was done taking care of them, no issue for the chicks but ducklings? It will likely be summer by the time I'm through with hatching and raising chicks for meat and replacements so it should be plenty warm out. I'm hoping 4ish weeks is plenty long enough for ducklings to feather out enough to be on their own. Anyone have success with a chicken raising ducklings?

By the way this will likely be a side project for me, something to do should the opportunity arise. I think it would be a good idea to try and see if I can't get some ducks that actually want to hang out with the chickens and perhaps even go to bed with them. If I can get a handful of ducks to be on the same schedule as the chickens then maybe it would be more enjoyable to keep them. My current pair of kahkis hang out with the turkeys who have trained them to sit on the deck in front of the sliding door. Getting kinda tired of having to step around the fresh piles of poo on a daily basis. Honestly been thinking about processing them (the ducks) but I may as well try getting some babies from them first!

 

[welderskelter]

its hard on a chicken as the time . They take an extra week. My dad said they had one raise young only when the ducks got close to the water the hen had a fit seeing them swimming.

 

[Beau plus penny]

hens will sit on anything that looks like an egg so

 

[DemeterAD9]

its hard on a chicken as the time . They take an extra week. My dad said they had one raise young only when the ducks got close to the water the hen had a fit seeing them swimming.

I'm not terribly worried about the extra week of incubation. This particular hen sat for at least 1, possibly 2 weeks before I was able to collect the eggs I wanted her to sit on last time. If the hen abandons the eggs early I have an incubator just in case.