What Happened with Iris’ 1st Clutch?

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We are very excited about our 1st ducklings. That being said it did not go as well as we had hoped.

Now let’s get into the nitty gritty about what happened and what we are going to change for the future. Since we created our aviary we have had to make a few changes. One of the biggest was the nesting boxes. Originally, we thought we could use 5 gallon buckets but logistically speaking it wasn’t working out well. We took those out and cut out doorways in these damaged Rubbermaid totes we already had and flipped them upside down. This was our first mistake, though we didn’t know it at the time.

Our ground is pretty soft, mostly sand. This caused the eggs on the bottom of the nest to sink into the ground and we are assuming they didn’t get turned or got too cold because of the freezing temps we’ve had this week. Either way none of them hatched. The few we candled were very dark so either mostly developed or rotten.

(We had to clean out the nesting box, it STANK.)

Iris ended up hatching out a total of 6 ducklings. As it turns out she was laying on 18 eggs not the 12 we thought so that brings our hatch rate to 33% which is absolutely TERRIBLE for a Muscovy. I’ve been told by other Muscovy enthusiasts that late season hatches always do poorly compared to spring hatches. It was also her first so that could have also contributed to our poor rates. I can’t help but think that the nesting box situation played a large role.

We have hopefully fixed that issue by putting the lid on the bottom so they don’t have direct contact with the ground. We had planned to trade 6 ducklings for a trio of meat rabbits and keep the rest of them for eggs or eating depending on gender. Some of that might change as the person with the rabbits only wanted 2 male ducklings at most. I will keep you guys updated as that unfolds!