Duck egg

[JILLY JACKSON]

My poor old broody wont get off the nest depite cold botty baths etc, so i went everywhere trying to get fertile eggs for her,i only managed to get 1 duck egg so gave her that.A friend is visiting from wales on Friday and hopefully will be bringing some pekin eggs for her,just looked in to find one of the others has gone broody as well!!ive given her a concrete one for now so hopefully i may get some babies too,not from the concrete one obviously,but will share the welsh eggs around them both.

[Hilary B]

Duck eggs take a week longer than chook eggs, and yes, they DO mix, just about.....

[dabsisme]

My duck went broody but it came to the 17th day and she didn't want to know...I read that ducks do this a lot...just wanted to pass it on.

I mite know of some eggs she can sit if you want any more, I'm in the west midlands if you are anywhere by that is.

[Hilary B]

Ducks are (mostly) pretty pathetic broodies. Muscovy ducks are pretty good, but the ordinary 'mallard type' ducks if they do hatch anything are 'chavish' Mums that wander off and expect the babies to keep up. Wild ones are rather better......

[HappyGreen]

One of my girls has done it last year in her nesting box in the sleeping quarters. We smuggled a few more eggs in, too. After 5 ducklings hatched she gave up, it was a bit much looking after them and keeping going on the nest. The mothering itself was not very successful, so we immediately said yes when offered to have some incubated and hand reared by a friend this year...I take all the eggs from any broody ducks now to discourage them - they all try it in the garden at some point where they can't finish the job as they get locked up at night.