Last year, we successfully attempted our first ever incubation and hatching of eggs on our farm. We said hello to six new egg-laying ducks to join our flock.
This year, we've decided to try a new venture--raising meat ducks! We will begin this venture with Peking Ducks. Peking Ducks are a traditional meat bird, but can also serve dual purposes--laying 150 eggs annually. After deciding to try this out, we were pleased to find fertilized peking eggs just down the road at another farm, so much thanks to Linda for sharing some of your lovely duck eggs with us. As we couldn't fit all of them into our incubator (duck eggs are larger than chicken eggs), we will leave three in our chicken coop for a broody hen to sit on and hopefully help hatch. Why not in the duck house? None of our ducks are currently broody or seem to be at all interested in sitting on eggs. What does "broody" mean? It means the maternal instincts of the animal has kicked in, her hormones are surging and she wants to hatch some eggs. She is okay with camping out in the nesting area in order to try to get some baby chicks to hatch from eggs.
Here's our seven eggs to begin incubation. Ducks take approximately 28 days to hatch, so hopefully we will have some ducklings to share April 15th!
