Broody duck or two

[KrisK]

It seems that one of my Muscovies (and possilbly another) is broody. She's making all sorts of strange noises and there were two eggs so far. She buried the eggs when she left the nest for a while to forage. I only have one duck house that all the ducks are in at night. Should I separate her nest from the other ducks? I can put a pallet in between if I need to.

[Rebecca, Irena Farm]

Muscovies are good girls and shouldn't need any special treatment while nesting. In fact, the ducks often lay in each other's nests and that seems just fine. Once the broods are hatched, you might put the first separate for a few days until the second is hatched and the mothers are both past the stage of "Oh my gosh, where's duckling #9? Oh, there it is, but now where's #3?" Maybe just a week or less. During that time, there's a slight risk that mama #1 would injure any of mama #2's brood and vice versa, if they got mixed.

 

Probably the next time around you'll feel more confident in letting them just brood and raise them 100% without interference, but this would give you a chance to observe their habits and know what is normal versus abnormal behavior.

 

I'm envious. I haven't had natural rasied ducks in years. They are so much fun!

[kelpiegirl]

I've a humorous story to tell about duck eggs. MANY years ago when I was finishing my B.S., I was in my comparative anatomy class, and we were all working on our cats. The lab started out just absolutely disgusting, because some of the cats came in with not enough formalin. GROSS- the smell was enough to knock you over. Even once we got the "bad" cats out of the lab, the smell still lingered. My classmate Amy had brought in some duck eggs she found near the pond and left them on the counter- I still have no idea why- but she had left them there several days before this fateful day. So, here I am working away with my lab mates, and all of a sudden we hear BOOM!!! and then shell, and rotten egg landed on our cat. I thought the boom was someone popping a blown up glove it was just like that. Anyway, then came the smell. OH MY GOD. The entire building had to be evacuated- I mean, first the bad cat reek, and now this. AMY!!! what did you DO??? Since then, I have always been ultra careful to date eggs.

[Jo&Tex]

I don't know if its different for ducks but whenever my hens (bantam Wyandottes) went broody, they would barely leave the nest. They only got off long enough to frantically shovel some corn into their beak and take a drink, then they sat on the nest for another 23 hours and 57 minutes. I was convinced that they were going starve to death. The hens also got very grumpy. I wore oven mitts to go anywhere near their nests.

 

After the clutch hatched, the hens went on with their lives so, I guessing here that if your ducks are stilll foraging, then they might not be broody YET.