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

 

Some updates from the Unfarm

Well, apparently my resolution to blog more this year is going swimmingly. (Not.) At any rate, here are some updates from the Unfarm to catch you up on what has been happening.

We lost Mynx, our little black and white spotted kitty cow, last August when she went into kidney failure. She had been declining for a while but we had been giving her medications and sub-cutaneous fluids for a couple of months in an effort to support her kidneys and buy her some extra time but we finally ran out of time for her on August 3, 2019. She took a turn for the worse and we had a vet come out to the house to put her to sleep where she would be most comfortable, at home, surrounded by the people who loved her. It brought an end to the Era of Mynx, which lasted well over a decade in our home. She was never a cat that loved to be picked up and held - in fact, she would scream like you were trying to murder her - but give her a lap to sit on and a hand to lick and she was a happy camper. The only time she allowed us to hold her without screaming at us was the day we found her. She followed us through the neighborhood and let us pick her up and carry her home when it became apparent that she was going to stick with us even if it meant crossing a busy street or two. Not once did she utter so much as a peep. So we carried her home, tried to find her family without success, and officially adopted her and had her spayed a week or two later. We never did find out exactly how old she was when she found us, but we figure she was at least 13 years old, probably closer to 15, when she passed away.

Mynxy cat, our kitty cow

We gained two ducks, and lost one of them. In the spring of 2019 I adopted two ducklings from the feed store and named them Gwendolyn and Genevieve. True to form for the Unfarm, Genevieve ended up having special needs: a cricked neck when she was quite young, but that got sorted out with help from the bird specialist vet we go to, and they grew up to be strong and healthy girls (both of them - imaging that!) and attached to each other at the hip. They would spend all their time together and hung out with the other ducks, Minna (our oldest female) and Fern and Aida (our two males, named when they were ducklings with the hope that they would be females, alas it was not to be.) Things were going quite well until February 2020 when Genevieve developed respiratory symptoms and our regular vet was out of town. We took her to two other vets who saw birds, but not as their sole practice, and treated her as best we could but she succumbed to her illness on the evening of February 13, while I held her.

Genevieve, on the left, and Gwendolyn, on the right

We gained two ducks, and lost one of them. Having a sense of deja vu? In the spring of 2020, I adopted two more ducklings from the feed store and named them Fiona and Gemma. This was in an effort to get the right mix of ducks so that the girls outnumbered the boys, to spread out the boy's attention over a wider population of females. So in came Gemma and Fiona, both mallards or rouen ducks, I still am not sure. They were doing great, getting along with the rest of the flock until they got spooked. The rototiller was brought into the back yard (not by myself, but identities are withheld to protect the guilty party) and it spooked the ducks into running. As the larger males, Fern and Aida, came barreling down on Fiona and Gemma, Fiona decided to take off. Literally. He (as we were beginning to suspect, as he was starting to develop what looked like male plumage) lifted off and landed outside the yard on the street beside the house. Fortunately no one was coming and it is a quiet street anyhow, so we attempted to get him back into the yard but he spooked again and flew off. The last we saw of him, he was flying east along our street. We put up signs and notices online, and searched the nearby area and local ponds for him but never found him. Fortunately, Gemma seems to have gotten over her loneliness and has joined the flock with Minna, Gwen, Fern, and Aida. 

Gemma on the left, and Fiona on the right

So there you have it. An update on some of the comings and goings here on the Unfarm. We are hoping for a relatively calm fall as 2020 has been stressful enough for everyone as it is. Here's hoping you and yours stay safe and well.