A tale of two duck nests... and the ducklings that followed

A couple of months ago, Gwen went broody and started sitting on a nest she had carefully concealed in the coop. She dutifully sat day in and day out on the nest and spent her time rotating her eggs and building up her nest until it was roughly the size that would comfortable house an eagle. And it didn't just stay in one place, no, that would be too simple. So every few days she would move the entire nest and all the eggs inside it to somewhere else in the coop. To say she was industrious would be understating it. On the few occasions when she did leave the nest, to get something to eat or drink or just run around the yard for a few minutes, she would carefully cover the nest back up with straw, and often threw some over her shoulder for good measure on her way out the door. 

About halfway through with her nesting I noticed that there appeared to be two nests in the coop and some of the eggs had migrated into the new nest. Not wanting the eggs to get too cold, I put them back into the bigger nest and then left the coop alone so that Gwen could nest in peace when she got finished with her free time. And yet, each time I was able to check the coop the eggs would be divided up again. It seemed that one of our other females, Gemma, had decided that going broody was apparently the "in" thing to do so she joined Gwen in the coop. 

Now there were two nests that migrated around the coop, making a kind of circuit, going from the back right corner to the center right to the front, moving from right to left, to the center left side. They were in the process of moving into the back left corner of the coop when I noticed, during one of their brief breaks from the nest, that one of the eggs had pipped but was slightly crushed and bleeding in places from the shell. I decided at that point that one of the mothers - probably Gemma as this was her first experience going broody and she is heavier than Gwen - had likely stepped on the shell and the duckling inside was going to need help. I removed the egg from the nest and gave some slight assistance in helping the duckling to hatch enough to be able to breathe and get out on their own. Adina, as I named her, hatched with the yolk still attached by the umbilical cord so I left her alone, keeping her warm and letting her rest while I hoped the cord would take care of itself in a matter of hours or days. She survived that way for a few days but passed away on the third day. 

Gwen and Gemma on their nests

Gwen with little Gracie, the day I found her

A few days later, Gracie hatched - strong and healthy and peeping away in the coop one morning. I decided to let her stay with her mom and see if Gwen could manage to raise a duckling. When I went out a day or two later to shoo Savannah (our poor little battered hen that Lilly loves to pick on) off the deck I noticed a little yellow speck on the patio. Gwen had, apparently, decided it was ok to let Gracie wander the patio by herself, surrounded by chickens and other adult ducks and a whole lot of yard to get lost in. Nope. Not happening. I set up the brooder in the house and popped her in it.

Gracie

Harley

Olive

Harley hatched next, and then Olive. Little Zaida hatched fourth, with the umbilical cord still attached and I didn't think she was going to make it, as she kept trying to push the shell away from her while it was still attached. I left her in the brooder, separated from the rest of the ducklings, and went to sleep. I was amazed to find her alive in the morning, and no longer with the umbilical cord attached. And after finding several more ducklings that had died in the coop, pipped too early or pushed out of the nest while hatching, I decided to set up the incubator for the last viable egg in the coop. It had started to pip so I didn't do any turning, but left it alone in the incubator and found it totally hatched a couple of mornings later. Abigail appears to be the last of the ducklings. 

Zaida, our miracle baby

They are all in the brooder in the house now, and doing well. They love water, and kale and watermelon for treats. At the moment, they are all different sizes and each has slightly different markings but I don't know how long that will last for. We still aren't sure if Gemma is a mallard or a rouen duck but we do know that Gwen is a magpie. Fern, our older male, is an ancona duck and Rosie is our younger male and a magpie/ancona cross. So the ducklings are some mixture of magpie/ancona or mallard-rouen/magpie/ancona breeds. Gracie is for sure a magpie mix, and I suspect Harley is as well... Olive is less certain, and Zaida and Abigail could have some mallard-rouen in their heritage. All of our birds are given girls names, in the hopes that they will turn out to be females. That's how we ended up with drakes named Fern and Rosie, and roosters named Lilly and Gretchen. 

To say that my parents are thrilled with this duckling development would be a lie. They are, in fact, much dismayed to find that we have five new ducklings. I'd like to point out, however, that it could be worse: all 14 of the eggs in the nest could have survived and hatched. Let's count our blessings. 

Abigail

 

Now departing on flight 327

I have, unfortunately, another departure to report. Last night, March 27, we lost Ingrid, the last of our mice. She had been slowing down lately and not eating as much but when I checked on her in the evening I found her uninterested in her dinner and breathing heavily in her little castle. I picked her up and held her while she took her last breaths and tried my best to comfort her and let her know that she wasn't alone as she died. 

She was the least troublesome out of the batch of three mice, including her, Hermione, and Josephine, that I most recently acquired. When I got them they must have been fairly young as they easily (and regularly) slipped through the bars of their cage to scramble about on top of the cage. 

It was because they were able to get through the bars of the cage that we lost - and then found - Josephine when she made it off the top of the cage and disappeared in the house for four days. She was hungry and quite thirsty when we found her but somehow she survived being loose in a house with two dogs and two cats. She was the first to pass away several months after her big adventure. 

Hermione suffered from skin irritation and was on daily medication to help calm her itchiness but even with all her skin problems and frequent trips to the vet she managed to outlive Josephine; she was the second to pass away. 

Ingrid outlasted them all, living to the ripe old age of nearly 3 years, about a year past the average life expectancy of pet mice, who generally live one to two years. Ingrid never went on walkabout throughout the house, and didn't have to visit the vet with any regularity, choosing instead to exercise on her wheel and build elaborate hidey holes in the bedding in her cage instead of getting into trouble. 

We will definitely miss her, as we miss all the animals that have passed through the Unfarm, but we are glad she lived as long as she did and take comfort in the fact that she never ended up as the snake food she was most likely destined to be without us. Have a safe flight, Ingrid.

On ceramic eggs and the intelligence of ducks

Ceramic eggs are in existence to help chicken owners. The eggs are designed to look like real eggs and you simply place them in the location you want your chickens to lay their eggs and they take that as a cue that this is the hot new spot to lay their eggs. I mean, if the other chickens are doing it, why shouldn't they lay their eggs there as well? The ceramic eggs can also be used to discourage chickens who have decided that they should peck at and eat the eggs. Ceramic eggs are much harder to get into, and much less tasty if they do. I haven't heard a great deal about using ceramic eggs with ducks but I figure if it works for the chickens then it's bound to work for the ducks as well. Right? 

Ducks are much smarter than they typically get credit for. When last I cleaned the coop and replaced a bunch of real eggs with ceramic eggs I reasoned that the ducks would assume everything was as they left it that morning and their eggs were still safely ensconced in their nest. Gwen and Gemma, my two outdoor female ducks, did continue to use the nest and did not seem upset over the loss of any eggs (we lost a duck once when she flew away forever after her eggs were removed from her nest) so I assumed that the ceramic eggs had done their job and fooled the ducks. I was wrong. When I cleaned the coop today and went to remove the real eggs I discovered that the girls had been using their nest but every time they laid an actual egg, they would roll a ceramic egg out of the nest to make room for the new egg. By the time I came in to clean the coop the nest was full of real eggs and the ceramic ones were scattered all over the floor of the coop. How they knew the eggs were fakes I am unsure of but realize it they did. This may be why I had not heard much about using fake eggs with ducks. I am, once again, reminded not to underestimate my duck's intelligence. It seems the only one fooled when I do that is me.

The haul for today: 22 duck eggs