Who would have thought that a chicken would be a better duckling parent than a duck? 🦆 🐔

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]This is Pancake, and Pancake is very upset right now because DPS took away her duckling. Before I tell you how we got here, let's rewind to how it all began. About a month ago, Pancake went broody, which means she started sitting on a nest of eggs and incubating them.

[00:00:13]Pancake seemed really committed to these eggs. She was extremely protective over them. She would bite any human or duck that got near her nesting box. So, since she seemed really committed, and I have a couple friends who want call ducks from me, I figured, you know what? I will let Pancake sit on these eggs.

[00:00:27]Hopefully, she will hatch them, and she can raise them, and then they can go to new homes when they're ready. So, I watched my coop cameras to see who was laying eggs in what box, and I carefully selected 12 eggs from genetically healthy parents that I thought Pancake could sit on. I marked those 12 eggs with an X so that I would be able to tell them apart from eggs that were freshly laid by my other ducks, and let Pancake get to sitting on them. After Pancake had been sitting on the eggs for a while, I caught her taking a drink outside in the pen, so I thought it was the perfect time to candle her eggs. So, I held a flashlight up to the egg so I could see inside and see which eggs were developing duckling embryos. About half of the eggs weren't fertilized, and a couple of them had started developing, but quit early on. So, Pancake was left with four eggs, which she seemed to be very committed to. Unfortunately, two more of the eggs did end up stopping midway through development, so I removed those eggs, and Pancake was left with two eggs, which she sat on faithfully for 26 whole days while we waited for them to hatch. And then late last night, Pancake hatched one adorable little duckling, and unfortunately, the other egg did not hatch. Pancake sat on her duckling all night, and she was still sitting on her duckling in the morning when I fed them. But a couple hours later, I went to check on her, and there was no duckling underneath Pancake. She was just sitting on a broken eggshell. I found her duckling behind her nesting box, where it was cold, stiff, and almost lifeless. So, I picked that duckling up, told Pancake that DPS was taking custody of her child, and I ran that baby into my chicken coop, and put her underneath Pepper, my chicken who recently hatched three duck eggs. And I am so happy to report that Pepper is doing a much better job of care of the ducklings than Pancake ever did. Pepper got Pancake's baby all nice and warm and she's already been teaching her ducklings how to eat and drink. So, let this be your reminder that not all domestic ducks make great parents and you should always have a backup plan and check on them regularly to make sure that they're taking care of their ducklings in the first few days.

[00:02:11]Sometimes domestic ducks just don't have the natural instincts that tell them how to take care of their ducklings and I think that sometimes they just get confused when their eggs turn into ducklings and they possibly think that the ducklings took their eggs and that's why they'll attack their ducklings or kick them out of the nest. But, at the end of the day, I'm just so thankful for Pepper for willing to step up and be a parent to this little duckling. She had no hesitation in taking it and she's already doing such a fantastic job raising it.