Claudia, by now you probably already know this, but it sounds like what you have are not Pekin ducks, but Muscovy ducks. Also, they will only lay...no more than once a day, if that. So, no way could she have laid 11 eggs in the last week. Are you CERTAIN the other duck was a drake? If it was, you can bet they are fertile. Is she sitting on them? Pekins usually won't bother laying in a nest. The eggs are more like an inconvience to them, I think. Mine would leave them on the edge of the pond! Never once found two of her eggstogether. Muscovies are good mothers...:) Suzie

So today is the 28th day and we've been watching her for a month. She laid 13 eggs total. Checked on her this afternoon and she was still sitting there. Went food shopping and 2 hours later the nest was scattered, mom was dead, and only 9 eggs remained. One of the remaining had a peck hole in the side that didn't go all the way through, so I'm thinking she was attacked by a flock of seagulls. She had been spreading the eggs out so they weren't all under her at once (previously they were piled in a mound and she sat on top). I am guessing the gulls saw the eggs and attacked her. There were no cat tracks in the sand, but many webbed bird tracks. As soon as we realized what happened, we grabbed them all (most were hot still, especially underneath where they were on the nest, but a few were warm and one was a foot or so away from the nest and was cool) and we warmed them back up with a hairdryer (we were desperate to raise the temp quickly!) and now have them in a foam/fleece cuddle cup from my old guinea pig with a heat lamp over them. The temp got to 100 and I had to pull it back. I have a thermometer you use when you get sick in there to monitor the temperature. I candled them and see the air pocket and laid the eggs with the pocket up, but don't know what else to look for. There's no movement and no peeping. Praying these babies make it with a clueless unprepared human!

Genny, you may want to get some false eggs for her. Not everyone will agree but I feel it encourages birds to stop laying and go broody when there is something left in their nests. You can likely find some plastic Easter eggs this time of year in a dollar store. Weight them with sand so they are about as heavy as a duck egg and glue or tape the halves together. When she goes broody, you take back the plastic eggs and give her the real ones. Don't worry about keeping the numbers the same... birds can't count. My American Buff goose went broody just a couple of days after my sister put one marble goose-sized egg in the nest. It was a bit of a joke, because when I picked it up it was much heavier than a real goose egg and very smooth. I couldn't figure it out until I saw her laughing. LOL. Sisters! But it did the trick.

That is very sweet Cearbhaill! The federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 states that it is illegal to: "pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill, attempt to take, capture or kill, possess, offer for sale, sell, . . . etc., any migratory bird, . . . or any part, nest, or egg of any such bird." So technically it is illegal to disturb their nest. But, sometimes I'm sure that is problematic. What if this bed were a veggie garden, and you needed to grow food there to feed yourself or your family?? And what about all the trees people take down that could contain a nest? I was working at a commercial property I manage the other day, pruning and clearing vegetation back away from the building. Chop chop chopping away at this Mountain Laurel, pulling out Bittersweet vines, almost done, and I was very surprised to look over and see this! I am very worried that I've exposed the nest, so I put propped some large branches in the back of the shrub to add cover to the nest. Yesterday I was over at the building and saw the Robin perched on the edge of her nest. Thank goodness she hasn't been abandoned her nest.