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.

Arrivals and departures on the Unfarm, duck edition

I've put it off for almost a year now but I am finally making myself do it. I have to announce the departure of Maggie, one of my favorite ducks. He (named when we thought he was a she) was a beautiful solid white Pekin (you know, like the Aflac duck) that was especially devoted to his mate, Minna. He would bravely defend her from mating attempts by Gretchen and stood up to any hens that decided to chase Minna. He traveled with us to the beach, to our family house on the Puget Sound, and on camping trips where he and Minna were always a big hit with everyone. He lived most of his life (at night) inside the house with Minna and the bunnies in my art studio, locally known as "the bunny room," where he tolerated wearing a diaper quite well and was generally a very loyal, calm, and friendly duck. 

Unfortunately, a short time after moving outside into the duck house, I went out in the morning to let him and Minna out for the day and found that Maggie had passed away sometime in the night. I took his body in to the nearby humane society and had him cremated, and his ashes now sit on one of my bookshelves in my room, along side several other cremated pets. At some point I fear my deceased pets will outnumber my books - and I have a lot of books - but that is the hazard when you live with animals: you are almost guaranteed to outlive them. Sadly. 

At any rate, Maggie's sudden and unexpected departure left Minna alone in the yard and ducks are not designed to be solitary creatures. Also unfortunate was the timing of Maggie's passing. Duckling season was over and procuring new ducks in the middle of July was going to be more troublesome than I would have liked - I usually just get my ducks and chicks from the local feed store about a mile up the road. As it was I had to scour craigslist and got lucky when I found someone in the city who had just hatched a batch of Ancona ducks. 

Fortunately for me, my mom was visiting my sister in Colorado and my dad was on a cross country bicycle trip so it was the perfect opportunity to get two ducklings (as ducklings should always have at least one other duckling with them.) I find it's generally better to ask forgiveness than permission in situations involving the procurement of more pets. This then is how we ended up with Fern and Aida - two beautiful dark brown and white ducks who turned out to both be males. I would have preferred to have ended up with at least one female duck out of the two so that the girls outnumbered the boys but at the very least Minna is no longer the only duck in the yard and could spend her time with the boys if she chooses to (which she does, on occasion) and there are now three ducks to huddle together in the winter time in the duck house at night to keep each other warmer as the duck house lack central heating. 

As beautiful as Fern and Aida are, I don't know as though I would go the route of a private breeder again for acquiring ducks as the boys are much more nervous and flighty than any ducks I have ever gotten from the feed store. I think it may have something to do with how much handling the ducklings got initially, the feed store ducks being exposed to almost constant attention whereas the small breeder ducks didn't receive as much attention in their formative days. That's my theory, anyway.

Maggie and Minna

Aida, with the darker head is on the left and Fern with the lighter head is on the right. They are both quacking their displeasure at my presence in the yard. 

Minna goes missing

Less than a month after Sophie went missing, we are now faced with a missing duck. Minna is small, brown, and rather inconspicuous to begin with and when she wants to secret herself away she is remarkably good at staying quiet and going unnoticed even if you happen to be standing right next to her. She does this frequently, actually. I'm not sure if she is hiding from me or trying to stay under the radar of the boys (Fern and Aida) and Gretchen, all of whom I suspect of trying to mate with her although I have only actually seen Gretchen attempting it. At any rate it is not an uncommon occurrence here on the Unfarm for me to wander around the backyard calling Minna's name while she sits in whatever spot she has chosen and waits me out. I suspect she also laughs merrily at my increasingly frantic searches as the ducks seem to have very little sympathy for my nerves.

Usually, the evening routine is that the ducks will get dinner after the chickens go to bed and then they waddle on in to their own coop for the night. This is usually when Minna decides to make her appearance: as soon as she hears the lid to the food bin opening up. The other night, however, she failed to show up so I went in search of her, fearing the worst (as anxiety is my forte.) I searched in all the usual places: under the deck, behind the wheelbarrow and beneath the fronds of the day lily. No Minna. So I widened my search and as I was nearing the gate separating the relatively safe backyard from the hugely unsafe (and therefore off limits to all unsupervised birds) front yard, where any wandering coyote or neighborhood dog could spell disaster, I saw Minna's head poking underneath the gate. It seems she had decided to exile herself from the backyard and was enjoying life in the front yard, sans any birds of the male persuasion. Which was, I may have mentioned, hugely unsafe. Mystery one: where is Minna? Solved. Mystery two: how did she get out? Unsolved. At any rate, she was found relatively quickly and I didn't have to spend a sleepless night worrying about her. 

What I thought was an isolated incident turned out not to be when Minna was discovered missing again the next day. This time, the first place I looked was the front yard as time was of the essence if she was wandering rather slowly through it (she walks with a limp from an old injury and so does not move very fast and is, therefore, one of our most vulnerable animals.) I found her almost immediately, sitting underneath the trailer right outside the gate. How exactly she got there was still anyone's guess because recent tilling and weeding activity in the side garden had exposed several gaps along the bottom of the fence line that were just big enough for an enterprising duck of Minna's size could fit through, not to mention the gap and the bottom of the gate. We blocked off the bottom of the gate with a block of wood and that seems to have stopped Minna's forays into the front yard for now (solving mystery two) but I fear it is only a matter of time before she finds a new escape hatch. She is, after all, highly motivated to keep out of the way of the Gretchen, Fern and Aida; despite explaining numerous times to them that "no means no," they refuse to listen to me.