Look on the Internet to find out if Magpie ducks will incubate (set on) their own eggs. As long as they are not in with a lot of other birds, I suspect that she would succeed in hatching her own. Sometimes they lay an egg every other day, until they reach what they consider to be a full clutch. Before they are actually starting to set on the eggs seriously, you'll notice that she will start building the nest and lining it with fluff from her own breast. This is, of course, if she will set on her own. I reckon that those eggs will be good for at least two weeks, while she gathers more. If you decide to use an incubator, I'd recommend one with a thermostat, hydrometer, forced air and egg turner; that is if you can afford it. I used to purchase the Styrofoam cheapo incubators, about every 12 months. They would get contaminated during hatching and after a couple of uses there was no way to use them successfully, as the eggs would become contaminated and cause sick, deformed chicks. Ducks require a bit more humidit'y for incubation, so you'd have to research that. I have hatched duck eggs under a broody hen. That works. But once they hatch, you have to take the ducklings and raise them yourself. The hen doesn't "speak the same language" as the ducklings. They don't communicate well and the ducklings abandon the hen after less than a day. Hope this helps, George

Found this - I guess they're not much of a fish eater... "What do mallards eat? Mallards are dabbling ducks, meaning that they do not dive underwater for their food, but feed at or just below the surface. They are well adapted to eating both natural and Âdomestic foods (such as waste grain from harvests). Most of their diet is made up of plants, such as wetland plants and grains (like wheat, barley, rice and oats). On occasion, mallards will eat animal foods. In coastal areas, mallards have been known to eat mussels. Mallards in other areas have also been observed eating insects and other invertebrates. Each spring, the female mallardÂs diet switches from plants to aquatic invertebrates found in wetlands. This diet provides her with the nutrition and energy she needs to lay and incubate a clutch of eggs. During the lead-up to the fall migration, mallards tend to take in more food. By building up a store of fat on their bodies, they have a ready supply of energy and are better able to survive the cooler temperatures and long migratory flights." Sounds like the fish will be ok, though I guess a tiny fry could be mistaken for ????????? S

I didn't have much time to write about this, so here's how we attract and keep the wildlife. I have a mass planting of the verbena bonariensis that I planted just for our goldfinches. They love it. Right now, the bees are in a total frenzy on all of the hypericum blooms (St. Johns Wort). Previously, it was the lavender and nepeta. For the butterflies, I have bronze fennel, parsley and milkweed planted as host plants. My milkweed hasn't bloomed, so it hasn't been used as a host. I have lots of food source for them through flowers. We have a birdbath that where we keep wet sand for a beach for them. For the hummingbirds, I have penstemon, monarda and agastache scattered throughout the entire garden. I have a grouping of salvia red Navajo, which they really love. There are many other plants that they like, too. One of the guys watches me refill the feeders and will beg when they are empty. He buzzes me quite often when I'm outside. He has a favorite branch in our willow tree where he sits when we're on the front porch. Frogs, both tree frogs and bullfrogs, live in our manmade stream in the garden and the natural creek in our woods. We have toads throughout the garden. The geckos follow us around the garden and sun themselves on our stone foundation, steps and porch. We have bluebird houses throughout our neighborhood and we have them on our property as well. We have shrubs that serve as shelter and our property is also bordered by acres of woods on two sides. They are particularly fond of our wax myrtles (plant them away from the house because the scent isn't good) and hollies. They like to hang out in our willow trees to scope out the garden and get in line at the birdfeeders. For some reason, they love our clump bamboo, so as it grows larger, I'm wondering if it will become a home. We also have open meadow which attracts mourning doves (who also walk around our garden paths all the time), rufous-sided towhees, meadowlarks, robins and bluebirds. There are several woodpeckers who visit our feeders. The goldfinches are the most common in our garden. The carolina chickadees also hang out and get very close to me (they know who supplies the food, I suppose). Yes, I'm a crazy lady who talks to all these critters who are hanging around me all the time! My son thought I was crazy, but after working in the garden with me during his spring break, he started talking to the critters, too! :-) Lastly, we have the cute, but destructive deer and squirrel population. A doe had her fawn in the woods next our house last year and she did the same thing this year. They aren't afraid of us, or our greyhound. Here's the latest addition (taken in the rain and 15x zoom, so it's fuzzy):

Kendra, the ducks are fairly shy and will leave the backyard if we go towards the pond. When the females starts to sit, she stays in the box, even if we mow the lawn right at the box, but if you open the door to her box, she will be off and not come back for several hours or more. We have two boxes, but a starling has scared them by sitting in the door to one of the boxes, so all three females that are laying are putting their eggs into one box. I think I have scared off the starling, but it will take awhile for them to try that box again. There was one egg in that box and I transferred it to the other box. Now we have twelve eggs in that box and none in the other box. We have put a camera in each box. So far the females have gone in and left before another enters the box but in past years we have seen some nasty fight when two females both get into the box at one time. Here is video taken in 2010--It was Fathers day. In this video you may see that one duck does not make it. He finally jumped after about 20 min. Mom was still waiting for him. Here is a link that might be useful: video 2010