New Arrivals

 So we had a broody hen. 

And we have some ducks that are laying eggs 

So we put the 2 together about a month ago 

 

 

 

 

 

1 egg must have been sterile

1 duckling seems to have died shortly after birth 

And I think we have 7. 

 

The time has come

For the ducklings to venture outside.
Indian runner ( 'Jemima puddleduck') ducks are good payers, so we thought wed get some  eggs and incubate them  .

And we did

And it was reasonably successful.

And the ducklings have grown and started to  get feathers, and with the mild(er) weather  its time for them to go outside

There are 19 in total.

We've not been able to sex them yet, but we will only be keeping a  few males. So duck will be on the menu later in the year .

And the food miles per duck ?  0.01136 miles ( 20 yards - the distance from the house to the lawn where they will be )  per duck. 
Beat that !

Ducklings

So we hatched the ducklings in the incubator .
And the broody hen adopted the 4 that came out of the incuated eggs.   One didnt survive, so we are left with the hens' one and the 3 from the incubator.

And they are venturing out , watched over by the hen

the ducks are coming

When one of the broody hens got fed up , we put the remaining eggs into the incubator .

They have started to hatch.

Add caption

But one of the hatchees is a bit weak and struggling.
It may not survive.

incubatoring again

We started  broody hens on some duck eggs a couple of weeks ago .
We check on them daily to ensue they have enough food and water. And yesterday one of them had clearly had enough of this sitting-on-eggs  malarkey and was found  on a perch. With the eggs abandoned and cold.

We have been here before with cold eggs and so nothing ventures, nothing gained the incubator was brought into action.

We checked the eggs - if they arent fertile then 2 weeks in ,  you can hear fluid sloshing around when gently shaken. As it is a tight fit for all the eggs in our (small) incubator, we had to jettison one

it looks as if it has been fertilised. And development stopped.

So the remaining eggs  have been put in the incubator

And they need turning regularly. And the water  topped up to maintain the humidity.
And we shall see whay happens   around the 28th June.

And then there were 6

One of the ducks went AWOL and then later reappeared with 7 ducklings.
And they have been growing , shepherded about  by their mother, who keeps a watchful eye on them.

But over the last few days we have only seen 6 ducklings, however much we count

We assumed it had either wandered off and got lost , perhaps like this one , or it had been got by an otter because they do have a track record , or perhaps the hooded crows had taken it (but we thought they are getting a bit big for that ) . 

But we found some evidence in the field , a short distance from the Burn.

Its a duckling-sized leg. We had a look and couldn't  find any more bits of duckling. And this has been picked clean. So whatever took the duckling in the first place  left the carcass and this  scavengers - probably hooded crows - have cleaned up afterwards and dropped it in the field. 

If we loose another one in a similar way , we'll have to do something about penning them in until they are a bit bigger. 

look what we found

One of the ducks went AWOL . We discovered that she had been sitting on eggs, well hidden in the undergrowth .And when one day she didnt come out as usual we went to explore and saw the duck with her chicks

 

chicks under duck

 7 Chicks in total .


 As they wouldn't find water from where they were, we decided to move them into a run until they are a bit bigger

 
 And the very well-made nest where she has been sitting  on the eggs for the last 4 weeks

  and the other ducks thought they would go and  see what was happening - hence the protection round the run

Anyone want some ducklings   ?

Burnside Poultry

Much more eloquently than I could

http://burnsidepoultry.blogspot.co.uk/

Moving Home

So we have hatched some ducks (5) and some chicks ( lots, in various stages of growing) .
The ducks
- are messy
- grow quickly

and they have already outgrown their original 'hand-crafted' ark but still need protection from the hoodies and the older ducks  , until they are a bit bigger.

So its time to move them on. They aren't big enough yet to share the spaces with the resident bunch  so we've commandeered the goose house, then used  as a lamb shelter and is now a duckling shelter

Before :











After