How many days does a wild duck incubate eggs: the timing and in which nests they lay
Home poultry farming in a farm or personal subsidiary plot sometimes begins with the appearance of a wild duck, which the owners bring from their natural habitats. Adapting a bird to new conditions is a troublesome business, but if you manage to breed offspring in captivity, the ducklings will feel great in the poultry yard. This raises questions about how many days different types of wild ducks incubate their eggs, how nesting occurs and how many ducklings can be expected.
Where do wild ducks nest?
Under natural conditions, wild ducks build nests in secluded places near the reservoir, less often - at a distance from it.It can be shrubs, reed thickets, tussocks, deadwood, abandoned hollows. Responsibilities for arranging the nest, as well as hatching ducklings, fall on the females, drakes usually do not participate in the process.
The wild mallard, the most common in Russia, often nests on the lower tier. The nest looks like a flat depression in the grass or soil. The female evens out the deepening made by the beak with the chest, moving in a circle. For nesting, the goldeneye chooses abandoned hollows, which can be located at a height of up to 15 meters. The nest of a wild shelduck can be located several kilometers from the reservoir on the ground or underground, in an abandoned hole.
Wild ducks make their nests from materials that can be found nearby - dry grass, thin branches. The sides are formed from fluff plucked from the chest, the amount of which increases with the number of eggs in the clutch. The fluff serves to keep warm, the female lines the bottom with it and covers the masonry when she leaves the nest.
In artificial conditions, it is necessary to allocate a separate corner for the duck, fencing off the mother hen from other birds. A low basket, a dense box, a small wooden box measuring 40 by 50 centimeters with sides 10 centimeters high are suitable for arranging the nest. Hay, straw or sawdust are placed on the bottom.
Next to the nest put food and water, a bath or a capacious basin with water for bathing. The water needs to be changed regularly to keep it clean. This is necessary to keep the female clean and hatch he althy offspring.
How many days do eggs hatch?
In nature, wild ducks start laying eggs in the month of April or May. Every day, the female lays 1 egg, and incubation begins from the day the last one is laid.
Ducks of the goldeneye and shelduck species breed in 28-30 days (less often up to 40 days), and the wild mallard sits on eggs for 26-28 days.
The exact period of incubation of chicks, in addition to the species of bird, also depends on environmental conditions (temperature, humidity, daylight hours). At first, the ducks leave the masonry to eat and bathe twice a day. At the final stage of incubation, females try not to leave the nest.
How many ducklings breed in nature?
The number of eggs in a duck's clutch depends on its species, as well as the habitat. In southern latitudes, under favorable conditions, masonry is usually larger than in northern latitudes. Clutches of wild ducks of various types:
| Type of wild duck | Number of eggs in clutch | Appearance of eggsAverage hatching time, days | |
| 9-13 | Eggs of regular shape, white with a slight light olive tint that fades as the clutch hatches | 26-28 | |
| 5-13 | Eggs oval dark green or bluish green | 29-30 | |
| 3 -12 | Eggs of the correct oval shape, the shell is shiny, white or with an ocher tint | 29-31 |
On average, wild ducks lay 8-10 eggs. The clutch can double if 2 females claim one nest. In this case, the offspring of both ducks is doomed - the clutch remains abandoned. In a ruined nest, a duck may lay eggs again, but they will not be fertilized.
Ducklings hatch together during the day, regardless of the date of laying each egg. After 12-15 hours the brood already leaves the nest. Ducklings see well, move on land, independently swim and dive into the water. At first, the chicks try not to stray far from the mother, they gather under the wings of the female every 2 hours.
Sheldock drake, unlike other types of ducks, is involved in the upbringing of chicks. Sometimes several broods of shelducks unite and move together.Mallards, on the contrary, do not accept contact with other broods - their chicks and females get to know each other well and keep apart.
When do ducklings start to fly?
Duck offspring grows and develops rapidly. As soon as the ducklings began to appear on all sides with real feathers instead of the edge, they make their first attempts to take off. Mallard chicks begin to fly above the surface 50 days after hatching from eggs, and after 7-10 days from the first attempts, they are already fully winged. The offspring of the wild gogol duck begin to fly at about the same time - 57-66 days, and the shelduck ducklings take to the wing earlier - in the period from 45 to 50 days.
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