Single hen

[TheChookKeeper]

Hello,

 

Ever since we discovered Geraldine was in fact Gerald, we've known that at some point, we'd need to get a couple of extra girls, as Alice just wouldn't... "fulfill his needs" as it were.

 

This is fine - we bought their house planning for the population to go from 2 to 4 because of this.

 

Now - my sister (with whom I live) runs a nursery school, and we both rather fancy hatching our own eggs, and figured it would be fantastic for the nursery children to see it stage by stage.

 

So, we planned that this spring, we'd have a go at hatching some eggs (Indian Runners preferably), in the search for 2 little girls to quench Geralds' "lust".

 

 

This has inevitably raised the following questions:

 

1. Most basically - where does one GET Indian Runner fertilised eggs from?

 

2. From what sort of age is it possible to sex them? Am quite happy to take them to a vet if they'd have more clue than me/you lot!

 

3. Where could I rehome those that didn't turn out to be girls? I am vehemently against killing them just because they're (in my opinion) the "wrong" sex.

 

4. Roughly how many eggs would it be sensible to try and hatch at a time? I was thinking 6 - but is that too many?

 

 

I am rather hoping one of the local people who sell ducks would be willing to take them off my hands, but obviously need to have some kind of agreement in advance - just wondering what other people do?

 

 

Thanks!

[sarahphillips]

Have you thought about eBay? I think there are quite a few people on there selling Indian Runner eggs that they will post to you for you to hatch at home - and some of them seem to have really good feedback from very satisfied customers.

We're planning on getting day old ducklings from a seller we found on eBay but will be visiting in person to collect them.

Hope this helps

[TheChookKeeper]

Funny you should mention it - I thought about that myself a little while ago, as I came across a guide to hatching ducks at home from someone on eBay who seems really nice, and as you say, has excellent feedback - reasonable prices too.

 

My main concern is still rehoming those I can't keep though

[Lesley]

If you can find someone locally who will be prepared any males would be your best bet, unless you're able to deal with them yourself. The Practical Poultry forum is another place to look for eggs or day olds and maybe find someone nar to where you live. If you do use Ebay, make sure that they do have good feedback.

 

Sexing of ducks is difficult and we just wait until the males develop their curly tail feathers - around 15-20 weeks.

 

We hatch our own if the duck goes broody and we eat the males.