Thursday 30th March 2017
Nest Sharing!!
Banana (last mentioned on 16th) is now firmly sitting on around 15 eggs in a beautifully made nest lined with her own down. Trouble is, she seems to be sharing it with one of the chickens. This is Red Junior, a Red Leghorn cross born last May (2016). We are not sure who her dad is, out of the two cockerels it could have been we suspect the Indian Game – and the reason, well Leghorns are not known for going broody but IGs are and this little lady is SERIOUSLY broody. We have tried to stop her from gate crashing Banana's nest but to no avail and so we have now ordered some IG eggs (part of our plan to start breeding pure IGs) and when they arrive, we hope we can get her to sit on those and leave Banana to hatch her own ducklings.
Banana began to sit last weekend and all was going well till Monday night when we saw that she was sitting just 'off' the nest and slightly quacking. It was then we found Red Junior who at that point was taking on the whole nest for herself.
A bit of intervention and good luck meant we got to the stage we are at now where at least the two of them are sharing. Trouble is that whilst chicken and duck eggs need the same temperature for incubation (around 37.5°), duck eggs require a higher humidity of around 55-60%, compare to 52% for chickens. A broody duck will wash herself in water once a day and then come back to sit on the eggs with a slightly damp chest, thus creating the ideal 'humid' conditions. Chickens of course don't wash in the same way and so don't do this, and nor do they need to. Having said all that, we have hatched duck eggs under chickens plenty of times and so there is obviously room for different methods here.
Nonetheless, we would like Banana to be left alone on her eggs and for Red Junior to have her own set. Aside from anything else, Muscovy eggs take 35 days to hatch, chicken eggs a mere 21 and as such, chickens are not meant to sit for that long (although they will of course.. most of the time).
So, we have a Plan B and just hope Red Junior can be persuaded to sit on her own nest – the plan will be to pen her in a cat basked or similar to begin with, next door to where she is now with Banana. That way she will still have the same sights and sounds and so hopefully won't be too worried about a slightly different position!!!
A bit of intervention and good luck meant we got to the stage we are at now where at least the two of them are sharing. Trouble is that whilst chicken and duck eggs need the same temperature for incubation (around 37.5°), duck eggs require a higher humidity of around 55-60%, compare to 52% for chickens. A broody duck will wash herself in water once a day and then come back to sit on the eggs with a slightly damp chest, thus creating the ideal 'humid' conditions. Chickens of course don't wash in the same way and so don't do this, and nor do they need to. Having said all that, we have hatched duck eggs under chickens plenty of times and so there is obviously room for different methods here.
Nonetheless, we would like Banana to be left alone on her eggs and for Red Junior to have her own set. Aside from anything else, Muscovy eggs take 35 days to hatch, chicken eggs a mere 21 and as such, chickens are not meant to sit for that long (although they will of course.. most of the time).
So, we have a Plan B and just hope Red Junior can be persuaded to sit on her own nest – the plan will be to pen her in a cat basked or similar to begin with, next door to where she is now with Banana. That way she will still have the same sights and sounds and so hopefully won't be too worried about a slightly different position!!!