What is the chance of a duck living after being handled by 4 people?

Filed under: Poultry |

raising ducks
Image by francescominciotti
And the story goes: the Duck race is a a non-competetive, in aid of charity contest that take place, every year since 2005, in several cities all around the US. You can «adopt» a rubber duck (as the ones shown in this picture) and, if your duck places on the first five positions, you’ll win a prize.
This year, our duck was number 131.254!
As shown in the coming pictures, the huge load is dumped from Columbus bridge into Chicago river from a yellow truck, and then the huge group is pushed from a firefighters boat with firehydrants, till they reach the finishing line, right before the Michigan av. bridge.
The whole thing is about charity, as the money raised (5$ for adopting a duck in the race, and some merchandising that is, indeed, very cool, such as the two ducks shown on the pictures, named Alfredino and Alfredone) go to the Special Olympics. You can learn more on the official website.

Our duck — it goes withouth saying — didn’t win a thing, but our deepest enjoyment of the entire contest.

Great, great idea!

Question by Kiara: What is the chance of a duck living after being handled by 4 people?
We found the duck egg about an hour ago and we want to know what are the chances of it living.

Can you help? Leave your own answer in the comments!

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5 Responses to What is the chance of a duck living after being handled by 4 people?

  1. I’m guessing here, but I would guess not much.

    Like many animals, Ducks know their eggs by how they smell. Once the smell is overcovered with human, it will not smell the same. This means the duck probably will not be able to identify that it is its egg.

    Unless you didn’t touch it much, the chances are slim. Touching the egg is like spraying your hair with hairpray. It dosn’t smell the same.

    eagle2401
    December 19, 2012 at 12:53 am
    Reply

  2. with out proper incubation temp NOT LONG. how many people holding the egg has no bearing. it may be to late to save the duckling . that is unless the egg was removed from the nest right after the duck left it and it has been kept at body temp since removal. to hatch it you would need to follow the basic poultry raising instructions available on line. also, the chances of a wild duck returning to a disturbed nest are O. touching has nothing to do with weather the duck will return to incubate the egg, its being disturbed that ruins the ” clutch” . also remember that wild ducks and domesticated are much different in their behavior. allot of people think that smell transfer effects birds the same way as mammals. not true. in reguards to the next answer, birds are not stupid and they dont loose or let fall eggs for no reason, its possible that the egg became to cold and mom knew it

    critter man
    December 19, 2012 at 1:40 am
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  3. If you keep the egg warm it should hatch, and they recommend turning it once a day.

    glenda z
    December 19, 2012 at 2:15 am
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  4. Are you keeping the egg, or is the duck still around?

    After being handled by four people, the chances are very slim. Birds hate it when humans touch their eggs because the human scent gets on them, and they tend to destroy them once they find out a human touched it.

    I have finch birds, and years ago my mom removed their egg because it fell into their water dish and put it back into their nest. Sure enough, they destroyed it. And this didn’t happen once only. It happened a few other times too. A duck might not be a finch, but many birds do react this way.

    blocupables
    December 19, 2012 at 3:10 am
    Reply

  5. keep it warm and remember to rotate it. put it up against a bright light to see how big the duckling is , if its big you have a higher chance

    ascalila
    December 19, 2012 at 3:45 am
    Reply

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