Duck egg incubation by Mrs Boss: preparation
Comments(53)
It’s that time of year again. Mrs Boss is going broody. When I go down to collect the eggs from the nesting box, she is keeping them warm for me. She is at the early stages of broodiness so she can still easily be shifted off the nest and scuttles downstairs to eat and drink. She will join the rest of the flock to forage for seed but within twenty minutes or so she is snaking back up the ramp in the hen house that leads to the dormitory upstairs.
In past summers she has spent weeks going in and out of jail. An anti broody coop is a really effective and inexpensive way of controlling broodiness in chickens. Generally two or three days in the clanger shifts them out of this state. Mrs Boss can take a week to get back to a non broody state. If you want eggs, broodiness is to be avoided.
This sad, diminutive hen came into her own when she fostered Farming Friends’ guinea fowl eggs last summer. We discovered that she was a wonderful mother and for the first time ever she looked happy and seemed to be content. She raised four strong guinea fowl and had a ball. In fact she even became an international movie star.
We are delighted to announce that Mrs Boss will be fostering Indian Runner ducks for The chicken Lady this summer. I collected the eggs this evening.
“When they hatch out you can almost see them growing.” Husband S was washing the eggs he had collected this afternoon. “How many do you think she can accommodate.”
When a hen goes broody she flattens her body on the nest for maximum incubation. These Indian Runner duck eggs are large. I tried to work out the answer. We need to go for the maximum as often some of the eggs are rejected by the hen after a few days.
“Why don’t we try four or five?”
“We always set an odd number of eggs under a broody hen. It seems to work well.”
In the end, he passed me the eggs, in an old egg box.
“There’s six there. See how you go.”
I have two or three days grace before introducing Mrs Boss to these eggs. It will be an early start for me. The broody apartment needs to be repaired and thoroughly spring cleaned. There is no point setting a hen on eggs if the environment isn’t clean and safe from predators.
At this stage no one can tell if the eggs are fertile. We can candle them in a couple of weeks to see if the embryos are developing. Each egg is a tiny miracle. If it is fertilised it will stay in a state of suspended animation until it is incubated. That’s how a hen can raise a brood that all develop at the same time. She will lay an egg a day until she decides that she has enough eggs. Then she will settle on her nest if you are lucky.
Once these eggs reach a temperature of 37? to 38 ?c. degrees, cells start to develop and the great Grand National egg development race begins. Different fowl have different incubation periods. Duck eggs take 28 days to mature, chicken egg gestation is a mere 21 days. Bantam hens take even less time, often hatching at 18 days. So mixing eggs from different fowl in the same nest is a no no. Once a hen sits, provide her with food and water that she can access from the nest. Once she is broody she will not leave her nest when she is peckish and can starve to death protecting her eggs.
I always visit the pen twice a day if I have a broody hen (with or without eggs) and gently lift her off her nest so she can relieve herself and feed. This provides a good opportunity to check the eggs and clean any fouled eggs in the nest. A clean damp cloth is handy here. Your hen is doing her best but sometimes needs a helping hand to keep her eggs clean.
Once the eggs hatch, the mother has to tend her chicks so any eggs that need a few more days are often rejected. Generally there is a two day window to accommodate first and last hatching.
As I write, the duck eggs are sitting beside me on the table and Mrs Boss is poised on the starting blocks, snug in the nesting box.
It’s a moment to be savoured. Bursting with hope and promise.
Thank you for your comments. And a bit of silly bath time fun with the Frothing Sea Monster trick!
Cutting energy costs
Recipe for sausages baked with herby garlic infused beans, bacon and tomato
Tracing some of my ancestors has taken me on a long journey
Recipe for lamb shanks braised in red wine with shallots: slow cooker/crockpot
The cupboard was bare – so what was The Contessa going to eat last night?
HG
Oh I’m getting excited too! Aren’t broody hens amazing – spreading themselves out like warm fluffy cushions. I love how the shuffle and clutch your hand if you feel underneath them . . . I wonder if that is why a nest of eggs is called a clutch?
Celia
Good luck!
Ohhhhhhhhh I am soooooooo looking forward to reading about Mrs. Boss’s new brood!!!! Can’t wait!!!! Best of luck!!
More of a question than a comment. My neighbour would like us to hatch a couple of duck eggs under our broody hen. I hadn’t thought about the difference in incubation periods. Would it be possible to set the duck eggs first and add hen’s eggs a week later? Or would she reject them? Hen is Buff Orpington, ducks are Indian runners.
Hi Magic Cochin
It could be why it is called a clutch. Or enough to fill a hand, possibly?
It’s so warm and downy, a broody hen’s breast.
Hi Slyvie
Just going out to repair the castle, between showers! The mice have done enormous damage over the winter.
Hi Pat
It’s exciting isn’t it. I just hope that the eggs are fertile.
Hi Caroline
I am no expert but I don’t think that would work. The broody hen would want to care for the ducklings and might abandon the other eggs. An overlap of a day or so would probably be OK but I think a gap of a week would be unwise.
When the keets hatched it was over a two day period. One egg out of the six didn’t hatch and was rejected by Mrs Boss after a couple of days. Now I wish that I had looked inside the egg to find out why it didn’t hatch.
N.B. Update.
S tells me that even if you stage manage the eggs to hatch on the same day a combination of ducklings and chicks wouldn’t work. Ducks grow rapidly and would dwarf and overpower the chicks. Never mix eggs in a nest for this reason.
Do duck eggs taste any different from chicken eggs?
Hi Hank
Yes they do. The yolks are very large. The eggs taste much richer than a chicken’s egg. A duck egg omelette or frittata is sublime.
Good luck Mrs Boss – farmingfriends and the guinea fowl know you can do it. I look forward to seeing the ducks when they hatch.
Sara from farmingfriends
Hi Sara
I know that Mrs Boss will be a good mother for the ducklings. Looking forward to a summer of high jinks with the ducklings!
Hi Fiona –
sorry, been so busy I haven’t had a chance to write my own Blog forages, let alone catch up with anyone else.
Errr…do you mean Indian Runner ducks, or is this a new breed…?!
Runners are fantastic, like hock bottles on legs. We have two ducks & a drake, they never cease making me smile as they pitter-patter around the place. And as you say, the eggs are delicious – perfect for cakes! I feel a baking session coming on….
BTW –
just a tip: with duck eggs, because the shells are so porous, it’s recommended to gently clean off any dirt with wire wool rather than washing the eggs prior to setting them – as you risk pushing any contaminates inside the shell.
My forthcoming article for ‘Smallholder’ magazine’s Welsh Special deals with artificially incubating goose eggs & raising said offspring – a fascinating experiment & a fantastic resultant Christmas Dinner!
There’s a fascinating twist to hatching goose eggs, & that’s to watch the unhatched chick ‘swim’ whilst still in the egg; it’s an extraordinary sight to see the egg propelled around a bowl of tepid water by its occupant.
Hi Jo
Ooops. Not a new breed, just got the name wrong! Thanks for pointing out the mistake.
Thanks for the tip about washing the eggs too. They were clean when they arrived from S.
How exciting to have an article in Smallholder Magazine – sounds like a really useful one too.
Well I’m not too sure about useful (!!) –
I write a regular (bimonthly) article for the magazine; rather than being ‘how to’-type stuff, it’s more of a series of lifestyle articles charting our adventures from when we arrived here. And there have certainly been plenty of those….!
We have a mother duck with about 10 eggs nesting in a tub in our garden. Unfortunately, the tub also houses an Acer tree. As Mum hasn’t left the nest recently, we haven’t dared to water the tub, but wonder how we can do so for the tree to flourish? We watch and hope she will go off for a while, as she did for the first couple of days, but now seems not to go at all. Is it possible we could quietly and gently pour in a little water away from the eggs and not disturb her? Help?
hi Jude,
What a quandary but I’m pretty sure you will do no harm to the duck eggs by watering your precious Acer. Ducks are often wet when they return to the nest, it’s whether you can water the tree without upsetting the expectant mum.
Hi Jo
I must check out your articles – sound like great reading!
How long will a bantam hen stay broody? We have one that is wanting to stay on the nest and we’ve just ordered some call duck eggs. I’d kind of like to have her hatch them vs. putting them in the incubator but I won’t get them until next week.
Hi Heather
I am no expert but I can share my experience of bantams. We do own a broody long termer, Mrs Boss.
There are things that you can do to encourage the broody state for your bantam. Move her somewhere quiet. Not the nesting box as if she sat there for a few weeks all your chickens would go off lay.
The place that you move her to needn’t be expensive accommodation. It could be a three sided cardboard box. Give her food and water that she can access from the nest. Set her on any eggs and when your eggs arrive replace them. If she is broody she will sit ‘on air’ for months.
Now you have to think about a safe environment for the eggs and adoptive mum. An ark is perfect (but pricey off the shelf. If you are handy it might be easy to run one up). The main things to remember is to set your broody house on fine wire mesh and have a door that shuts tight at night. Developing eggs attract rats and it would be so disappointing to lose them.
I’d love to hear how you get on.
Help! Duck wars! I’ve been keeping Indian Runners for about six years and for the first time one my female ducks has gone broody and has been sitting on her clutch for five days. The problem is that she is now being harassed by the other female. The broody duck has made her nest in the duck house where the other two get shut away at night. I am loathe to move the broody into other accommodation in case this disrupts her broodiness.
Should I separate them or leave them to sort themselves out? I’d be so grateful for advice, it’s either you or call in the UN !
Hi Nan
I will talk to my duck expert this evening and get back to you.
Hi, my son found a mallard nesting in our garden, but as it was startled it flew off and now she still hasn’t come back to nest. It has been 3 1/2 hours since she’s gone and I’m worried about the eggs. What shall I do?
Hi CF
There’s nothing that you can do. She probably will return when you are indoors. Keep well away from her nest. Fingers crossed.
If she does return, don’t appear to notice her. After a while she will feel safe again.
Thanks for that. We did stay well away once it had been discovered but the duck was spooked by it all. My son did not realise the duck was there and went to retrieve a ball that went nearby her nest. I can see the nest from my landing window so I’ll keep my fingers crossed she comes back.
If it is possible to move the other ducks away from the broody duck then I would, but I wouldn,t move them so far that she can,t hear them, or isn,t aware of them, because that might stress her.
Also ducks can be quite aggressive with ducklings
so she would need to be segregated before they hatch anyway. We have moved broody hens before but not ducks, we have two broody indian runner ducks at the moment, who are actually sitting on aggs on the same nest, they both have periods off the nest, never more than 10 minutes at a time, but they do come off about 4 or 5 times in one day.
Thanks so much for your advice. It’s funny but I think my other female duck is just trying to get in on the act, so I thought about trying to settle her on some eggs, that’ll just leave one poor bewildered drake wandering around on his own. Thanks once again! Love this website.
Hallo
Update on the Duck War
Peace has broken out!
Both my female Indian runners are now sitting happily side by side in the duck house, after I was able to filch a few eggs for the eggless one. It was only fair, after all, she had laid half of the eggs and wanted her share! Now we just have one lonely
and confused drake, who without his wives to boss around has become obsessed with chasing pigeons to very little effect. Thanks once again for your help
Hi Nan
This is good news!
The Chicken Lady has also got two ducks sitting on a vast nest ATM.
Hope all goes well with yours.
hello
i had a call duck sitting on 12 eggs
something disturbed her so she left the nest
tryed allsorts but she would not sit
eggs about 10 days from hatching
so i put them in my airing cupbord
been 7 days now 10 stil ok
Hello Klare
I do hope that they hatch. I’d be very interested to hear how you get on.
Currently incubating 2 duck eggs. One is at 21 days incubation and the other is at 11 days.. I candle them every day. Yesterday, the oldest one was kicking and moving quite a bit, today, there’s no movement and things appear darker in the shell.
Should I be concerned?
Hi Gina
I’m sorry but I can’t answer your question. I have no experience of incubating eggs (Mrs Boss is our incubator!).
There is a handy site with information about candling eggs here http://shilala.homestead.com/candling.html
Perhaps someone else out there can help?
I’d be interested to hear what happens.
I’m on day 27 with a mallard egg left in my garden. I’ve been candling it most days. 2 eggs were left and only one has developed. It’s been fun to watch . Mine is at the stage where I believe the yolk is being absorbed into the chick. I also don’t see movement anymore – and you can tell there isn’t anything for it to float in anymore and the blood veins are gone. I’ve set it up in it’s brooder, and hopefully it will hatch this weekend. Just used a heating pad since I found it , and turned it a few times a day. In its new brooder setup the heating pad is on the bottom under some towels and I have a lamp setup for above heat.
Hi Lori
This is interesting as I have no experience in the artificial incubation field. Mrs Boss is our living incubator!
I’d be really interested to hearhow this turns out for you and would be grateful for any updates.
Hello,
We have a broody chicken sitting on bantam eggs. She is on day 19 and no sign of hatching yet – I guess she would sense if anything was wrong. She seems serene enough. If a chicken sits on Bantam eggs is the incubation duration that of a Bantam or a chicken ir 19 or 21 days? This is our first. If anyone has any advice I owuld be very grateful to receive it. She’s a lovely little Hen and deserves a baby from this.
Hello Kim
The bantam eggs should hatch within the limit of bantam egg hatching. Often they take an extra 2-3 days (sometimes even longer) to hatch. If she is still sitting a week after 19 days seriously consider that you may have a dud batch.
Mrs Boss was sitting on duck eggs (incubation period 28 days) the first hatched on day 30 and the last on day 32.
Fingers crossed tat you get some chicks. Love to hear how you get on!
Help! I live on the 4th floor of a building and a duck has laid 7 eggs on my porch garden this morning. How do I get rid of her and them? If they hatch up here, the ducklings are stuck on my small porch. Can I relocate the nest to the ground? I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t want a duck family living on my porch for the summer.
Hi Mark
It’s possible to move a duck and eggs but where would you move them to?
A friend of mine found a duck on a nesting her empty swimming pool, she rang the RSPCA and they took them away. You could try that as they’d know exactly how to move the duck and eggs.
I live near a lake and we found a Florida duck nesting in a mound of high grass. There are alot of eggs and she has been sitting on them…it seems like a month or more. My question is this: Will she still lay on these eggs if they are dead? She seems sooo dedicated and it is breaking our hearts to think of her dedication to her babies…how can we tell they still have life in them? Is it wise to touch them when she goes out for a quick swim in the lake or to feed herself…she is never gone long. Can we touch them and put them back without harming them?
We just want to help…It seems so long that she has been sitting on her nest. And if we do touch them, how can we tell if there is life in them?
Thanks so much!!
Hi Cathy
Duck eggs can take a minimum of 28 to hatch, often a few days more.
Mrs Boss has been known to sit on a clutch of china eggs for a month so it’s difficult to say whether your duck is sitting on fertile eggs or not.
You can touch the eggs without harming them. You could candle the eggs. This means shining a torch through the egg to see what’s inside. There is a helpful site here with instructions http://shilala.homestead.com/candling.html but at this stage I personally would leave the duck sitting. If they are not fertile she will eventually give up as the eggs will go bad. Broodiness in fowl is hormonal. You can help by giving her space.
I’d be interested to hear what happens eventually.
hello,
i have call ducks and i found one of them has a hidden nest. She has layed around 12 eggs, but she is a small thing and i dont think she can sit on all of them. She has been sitting on them for 3 days now but, im afraid she has stopped. i dont know if i scared her off or what. im afraid that the eggs have been in the cold too long and would have died. i dont know what to do! please help!
Much appreciated!
Hi Blaire
There’s nothing that you can do. She may return to the nest – keep a careful eye on her but avoid the nest if possible. If she has been sitting and left the nest for over half an hour or more the eggs will have gone cold and won’t be viable.
Maybe in the spring she’ll have another go. This often seems to happen to young ducks – they have a sort of practice run.
I have two khaki campbells and one Cayuga all females. The Cayuga is broody and seems as though willing to brood out a set of eggs, but of course these are not fertile. Thinking of getting some fertile eggs now if I can find some (I live in Western Washington) and encourage her to hatch out some ducklings. If so, I have a few questions…
Will the other ducks continue to lay in another nest if I make one for them? Or will they go off laying? Should I create another house for them? or? Until now all ducks i’ve had seem to lay in one big nest, or just lay out in the open.
I can add lights if needed to help warm the duck house. Would February be just too early to have a brood of ducklings? (we could still get snow, but just for a day, new growth happens about this time) I’d like to get an early start for egg production this year. Any experience with this?
thanks, happy to find this website, lots of information here.
Hello Heidi
I always move a broody hen to a quite, separate place (we don’t have ducks here just raised a few this year for some friends). If the eggs do hatch out, the ducklings need to be safely away from the rest of the flock, they are delicate and could easily be damaged by ducks stampeding for food. The adoptive mother will be tired at the end of the day and an enclosed space insures that she will have peace and quiet when needed.
I don’t know whether it’s too early in the year to raise ducklings but suspect that a separate house (or a cordoned off area), with a heat lamp would do the trick. In England ducks tend to mate and lay in the spring and summer months.
I’m no expert but would love to hear how you get on.
Really interesting reading this thread… I have three bantams sitting on one duck egg each – about day 24 for the first egg, and day 26 and 27 for the second two. I didn’t think to separate the first broody bantam did I so of course they have all gone to ‘play’ at mum and no more bantam eggs!!! Question – do I remove the ducklings as they hatch and put them under a heat lamp separately… or leave them with the bantams? Will the cockerel bother the ducklings? Help? Thanks for all the titbits of advice so far… inadvertently given of course.
Hi Shicks
The cockerel needs to be kept well away from the ducklings and the bantams. The bantams will mother the ducklings so there is no need to put the ducklings under a heat lamp. When the ducklings are about a third of their adult size they can be introduced to the rest of the flock. I have not had three broodies together so can’t adbise on what to expect.
I have a Muscovy duck that laid 18 eggs. Now there are only 9 left. Either the other ducks roll them out of the nest or another animal is taking them. She has been sitting on them for about 35 days and nothing has happened. I leave food and water for her so that she doesn’t have to leave the nest. The male duck still goes into her nest & sits on top of her holding down her head. Do you thing the eggs will still hatch? Should I clean the nest or clean the eggs? Should I put a small picket fence around the nest so the other ducks can’t get to the eggs? This is my first experience & I’m not sure what’s the best thing to do for them to hatch.
Thank you, Lila
Hello LIla
Muscovy ducks sit for at least 35 days. So I’d give her at least five extra days. Yes if she is going to hatch eggs she should ideally have been given a seperate space from the begining. All (including the male) should be excluded from her compound.
If she does hatch out eggs the male duck needs to be excluded for at least 8-12 weeks. He could damage and kill the ducklings by mistake.
Wow congratualations on incubating duck eggs.
I’m focused more on backyard chicken care, and never even thought of duck raising.
I’m may try it out somtime..
For those people that are just starting out with chicken care you can get an informative 10 Lesson minicourse found here:
http://raisingchickensecrets.com
just got 2 eggs out from my lady 2 baby mozkovy ducklings. she has 2 to go shes a great mammy hen.
thank you for the helpfull reading i have learned a lot today. cu soon. topman
I have been incubating some runner duck eggs for the last 19 days in an incubator.
I have a hen that is going broody. Would it work if I transfer the eggs to the hen?
I’m not sure about this. It probably would work. Let us know how you get on!
Hi
We have 3 indian runners. One of the females is broody and has just started sitting on 12 eggs today. We’re real beginners, only got the ducks last summer and have no experience of hatching ducklings! Are we able to clean their shed out without scaring her off the nest? I’ve read on here about keeping the eggs clean so can we change the bedding under her or should we just wipe the eggs over? Also should we be keeping the other 2 away from her from now on or just before they hatch?
Thanks for your help!
Deb