➡I accidentally bought Balut eggs: 2 live ducks! Now a Chat Thread!

Oh my. I bet you freaked out there for a second. I'm glad Lucy is ok.

I did. I was worried for a second that she might have broken a toe or something. The poor thing looked pitiful hanging there. I felt her foot and toes. Everything felt ok. I am glad it was behind me and I was there right away.
 
I don't want to get up to turn the light on (the flash is too bright)...the Faker is curled up against my leg on the edge of his heating pad.
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It's what I like to call "crisp" here. It's chilly but invigorating. Wakes ya up. Idk. It does me anyway. I have been taking the littles out in the morning once the chill is off of the ground and letting them stay out pretty much all day. We have a hardware cloth fence perimeter set up around the little coop. That way they'd have grass to forage in instead of just being confined to the coop area. That way they could be out with the big girls in a look but no touch way. Hoping to let the big girls get used to them. It's worked great up until yesterday. I check in often of the littles. We have cameras set up around our place and I can see them from inside. I looked in on them and noticed a big girl inside their area. I was like, oh crap! So I go outside to make sure everyone is ok. My son follows me. I check on the littles first. They're fine. I'm like, whew! My son gently picks up the pullet (Lucy) and places her back outside of the enclosure. The littles come out of their little place where they were huddling, start foraging like nothing ever happened. All is good. Well, I am sitting in a chair visiting with the little ones and Lucy decides that she wants back in. She tries to jump on the hardware cloth fence (right behind my chair where I was sitting) but it's not super taut so it's a bit wobbly under her weight. She goes to jump down inside the enclosure and one of her toes gets caught in a square of the HC. So there she is, squawking and hanging upside down by a toe. I'm there in a flash. Pick her up, get her toe out and sit down in the chair with her and hold her. I look at her foot and everything looks ok. I think I got to her really fast before she could flail about and damage anything. So now she's sitting on my lap and I'm just petting her and talking to her. After a bit she wants down so I let her. I want to see the interaction. To see where we are on a tolerance level. The littles pretty much avoid her. She doesn't go after them. BUT! When they were inside the little coop run grabbing a bite of food while she was outside of it foraging, she took notice and made her way over there. Came thru the doorway with a little speed and ran off the littles from the food dish. She just stood there. But they gave her her space. I lured her away from the food, gently picked her up and placed her back over the fence. So food bullying/guarding may be an issue. So multiple feeding stations will definitely be necessary once I combine them all. I think they have a little ways to go yet before I try tho.
I've found that he younger one's always get chased off the food, particularly by the lower ranked big 'uns. This year, when I had my original hens, my 14 week olds, and my 5 week olds, all together, I had 3 water/food stations. As soon as I would fill up a dish, an older bird would commandeer it for awhile, but eventually would lose interest, so everyone had access.
 

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