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

 

Hatching chicks on the Unfarm!

Last summer, my dad went on an epic bike ride from Washington state all the way to Maine before flying back home. My brother was temporarily in San Francisco and my sister lives in Colorado. This left my mom and I alone to tend to all the Unfarm chores. This was a huge mistake on my dad's part because that also meant that my mom and I were left alone on the Unfarm with no one to tell us "no" so when Georgia, our partridge Wyandotte hen decided to go broody we said "yes." We let her sit on her eggs - all 15 or so of them by the end - and attempt to hatch them. 

This was our first experience with hatching chicks and we didn't know quite how to go about it so we let Georgia do most of the work with keeping the eggs at the right temperature and humidity and turning them when needed. This worked well enough for the first two chicks. At that point, Georgia decided she was done and hopped off the nest for good. I only found the two chicks - who we named Luna and Sally, Luna because the solar eclipse was the next day and we wanted at least a semi appropriate name considering the occasion - because August 20th I was laying in bed with my window open and I heard rather frantic peeping that didn't sound like any of our local birds so I went out to investigate. I found Georgia in the run with one chick and the other chick was stuck in the coop, peeping her head off, trying (in vain) to call Georgia. Checking the nest box I found the rest of the 13 eggs beginning to cool off. Georgia had apparently decided that she was good with two chicks and the rest could fend for themselves. Having candled the eggs (probably way more often than we needed to or would be advised because we were so excited to see the little chicks developing inside) we knew that the eggs were all full of living chicks so in a panic I ran inside and set up the incubator, which I had purchased from the feed store upon seeing Georgia up and off the nest at one point, thinking that she had abandoned her eggs. (Hens will occasionally leave the nest to grab a bite to eat or go to the bathroom without any ill effects on the eggs. I discovered this after purchasing the incubator.) I carefully transferred all the eggs into the incubator and set it up on the kitchen table where we would be able to keep an eye on it and it would be relatively safe from dogs and cats. 

The incubator on our (rather messy) kitchen table.

The two chicks that had hatched got set up in the bunny room in a brooder pen that we fashioned out of a dog crate and brooder kit with a heat lamp on top. There was one unfortunate incident in all of this: one of the eggs in the nest had cracked open but the shell membrane had started drying out and was shrink wrapping the chick inside, who wasn't moving. Figuring it was a loss, but unsure what to do with it I just stuck it under the heat lamp next to Luna and Sally and waited until Mom came home from church to decide what to do about it. However, upon showing it to Mom we noticed it was starting to move so it was still alive in there but seemed unable to get out of the remainder of it's shell. So we took tweezers and very carefully peeled the membrane and shell off of the tiny chick. Not sure if the chick would make it or not, we named her Lucky in hopes that her name would give her good luck and help her survive. 

Lucky, half in and half out of her shell

Luna and Sally hanging out underneath the heat lamp, before the brooder crate was set up.

Once Lucky had dried out and was relatively mobile we brought Georgia into the house and set her up in the brooder pen with her chicks. She was, as it turns out, a really dedicated mother. She'd let the chicks snuggle up under her feathers to sleep or hop on her back for a ride and she always made a gentle clucking noise when food was provided to show the chicks what was food and made sure that they ate before she did. 

Georgia give a chick a ride in the brooder pen.

The rest of the chicks hatched over the next week or two in the incubator - the reason for the staggering in hatching times was that Georgia only laid a couple of the eggs herself, we believe. The rest of the eggs she rolled into her nest as soon as the other hens laid them, and then sat on them herself, so each chick was a day or two behind the previous chick in terms of development. Once they were all big enough to be outside we set up a small pen for them so Georgia could be with them outdoors but the other hens and Gretchen would not be able to get to the chicks and possibly hurt them.

A chick in the incubator, just after hatching.

Drying off in the incubator. You can see the other eggs still incubating.

One of our few blondies, we think these chicks are the offspring of Bridget, our Rhode Island Red hen.

Georgia, the proud momma, in her outdoor pen with several of her chicks.

By the way, Lucky survived and is doing fine and she is one of the four chicks that we kept. The others were given to a friend who has a farm and was in need of some more chickens. Sadly, all of our barred rock chicks turned out to be roosters. We were planning on keeping some of the barred rocks if they were hens as their mother, Lucy, is so very friendly. How we ended up with one hen that produced only males and all the other hens producing only females is a mystery to us.

Lucky, a beautiful black hen.