[katrina4068]

Hi

We've been told that ducks arent too hot on sititng on their eggs and we have more chance of success with one of the chickens sitting on them...

anyone had a similar experience?

We don't really have a broody hen as such, 3 of ours are warrens? (similar to rhode iosland reds... all 3 ex battery hens) who dont tend to get broody by breeed so i've read, alos got a couple of ambers and a balck one (no idea... called Elvis though!)
do we need a broody hen for this to work? or will one of these birds just start sititng on them?
One of the warrens (joe) lays in a tree and will go sit on the 2 eggs we've left from time to time but won't stay on them constantly as i've read broody hens do?.
i dont want to intervene and start wiht incubators in truth, i'd rather let nature do it's thing as much as possible. But most of the sites i've looked at on the internet talk about us hatching them.

Out girl (Belle) has just started laying eggs and steve (my other half) has been eating them! saying we have to wait a while before we start leaivng them for her to sit on. (believe she wont start doing this till she has between 5 - 15??) warmer weatther so im told!!!!

any advice of similar duck keeping stories muich appreciated! into uncharted territory on this one!
(and mammothly excited about the prospect of ducklings wadlling round the garden)


Katrina

[chrisgod]

I have heard of hens sitting duck eggs, but making a hen BROODY at will is a NON starter!! The hens will either become broody or not and usually just when it is least convenient in my experience!! BUT best hen by far for broodyness is the SILKIE!! Only other thing is to get a SMALL incubator?? You can get ones to do SIX eggs??

[stephen]

im not 100% sure if this is true its just something i was told once!

its fine to let a hen sit on duck eggs but you should never let a duck sit on chicken eggs because when they hatch the mother duck will try to teach them how to swim and of course a chicken cant! 

[paddy]

I had 5 ducks hatched by a broody hen.  The hen belonged to a friend of mine.  She didn't want to hatch any chickens so when the hen got broody, she bought half a dozen duck eggs and 5 of them hatched.  I kept them with the hen until they got too big to hide under her.  Then I gave hen back and the ducklings looked after themselves.  They were in an ark at first but when they got big enough to swim, they were free range during the day and shut in a shed at night.

I still have two but three of them were taken by foxes - daylight raids.  I now have an electric poultry fence and it seems to keep the foxes away.

paddy