*!squee!* The babies are coming! The babies are coming!!

We're on our way out for the day, and while I was getting ready, my husband went out to tend the ducks. He spent a little longer than he usually does out there and when he came back, he asked me how many of the eggs were cracked last night when I last checked in on everybody. None!! Weee!! I ran outside with my phone/camera and peeked under BabyDuck (she wasn't totally over the eggs at the time). So awesome!! There are 4-5 eggs that are broken. (*hop hop*) And the most amazing thing -- watching the eggs moving and listening to peeping coming from within!!! Oh my gawd, I'd read about that on BYC, but HOW COOL it was to really see and hear!!!

I guess for my first time, I figured Hatch Day pretty good. I guessed between July 7-11 and it's the 9th! *chuckle* We're going out for a good part of the day, but there will pictures later!!

P.S. It's a good thing we got the Bachelor Pad wing of the new duck pen finished last night -- MamaDuck and Wade got transferred over this morning so we wouldn't have any aggressive male-to-duckling issues!!

P.P.S. I'm so excited!!!!!!

We got home about an hour ago to find a surprise! :) Three of the eggs hatched while we were gone!

 

One of the babies -- he/she has almost an "M" on its forehead.

 

A second baby -- kind of has a "V" on its forehead.

 

The same two with BabyDuck.

 

Same two again, with BabyDuck.

 

The egg to the farthest right has a peck hole through it, just big enough to be able to see the tip of a bill working at it.

 

I got a brief glimpse of a dark feathered baby under BabyDuck, but I don't know any more than that about #3. I expect a few more to hatch before the day's over... so exciting! There are 17 eggs under BabyDuck (there were 18 until a couple days ago, she pushed a rotten one out). A couple of them are dark grey, so I'm not sure if they're rotten or not (they didn't smell when I did the sniff-test).

 

 

*laugh* I would do that, except there's already a MamaDuck.... HE was named by our toddler.

 

We just spent the last couple hours sitting beside the hatching nest. We are SOOooO mosquito-bit, but soOOoo happy! What a great experience. We even got to actually see a few ducklings hatch. Eating a quick dinner now, then headed back outside. A gozillion pictures will follow....

More pics, more pics, more pics

 

A little one, working its way out of an egg next to "Auntie" Holly

 

Holly, the mama of some of these eggs, took over sitting responsibility from BabyDuck for a while. It was really neat to see this cooperation going on with the two hens! Note the opening egg beneath her. :)

 

Welcome to the world, little one!!!

 

Same duckling as above -- looks chocolate & white to me!

 

BabyDuck would pull eggs out of the nest at times, to sit on them herself....

 

And then Holly would steal them back, tucking them back into the nest. *giggle*

 

BabyDuck (white), Holly (chocolate) and a few of the babes. Sadly, one didn't make it -- you can see it next to the shell-half on the right. We didn't see it hatch, but for when we saw it, it never got up, just laid there, barely breathing. It didn't survive the night.

 

Playing peek-a-boo out from under Holly's tail.

 

It looks like most are going to be white. So far I think there's two black-with-white and one (or two) chocolate.

 

Ten were hatched as of this morning. I could only ever get pics of 9 of them, though. *chuckle* A few of the remaining eggs were cracked when we were last out there, so there may be more soon!

 

I just want to smoosh my face into their fluffiness!!

 

I'll post more pictures when/if the rest hatch!