a few test eggs= 2 new ducklings!

[chickenlisa]

Over a month ago -it seems- I gave my insistently broody Blue Swedish hens some of their eggs back to sit on. After more than half of them disappeared (I still don't know what happened to them) I found 2 hatched ducklings under them today. It is pouring rain and chilly, the pen is muddy and gross, and they had to show up now. Poor things- I hope those 2 mommies keep them safe, warm and dry.
For now, Here are 2 pics and until the weather is dry and warmer, I'm not going near them again. I was shocked to see them- 1 already dry and fluffy too.

 

[Amiga]

Sweet!!!

 

[chickenlisa]

I can't wait for the rain to stop and the mud to dry up and for me to be able to muck out that pen. We have lots of screened gravel down in there, but this is just the bits of mud they grab mixed with duck poop and lots of rain..a hoe dragged over it and some sun will help lots! They look to be pretty light blue and at least one will have the poof ball crest that the Daddy Blue Swede has...I love photographing my birds but not in the rain. Buggers..I'm not a very patient person either- I'm just itching to get out there and snap pics, but don't want to bother them in this bad weather and take a chance that the wee babies would get left alone or fall out of the car tire nest they're in.

 

[chickenlisa]

well, sadly, one of the new baby ducklings died today. I rescued it from the brink of death this am, when I found it wet and cold lieing in the nest. That was after I put it back up into the tire nest twice, my 4 am fears about them hopping out of the nest soon and not being able to hop back into it were realized already by 7 am today! They could get out but not back up those 5-6" into the nest and the moms were being pretty oblivious about them being out and getting in the mud. So I pulled that tire out and replaced it with a blue plastic crate on its side, with all their nesting material in that,and the 2 babies in the hay and feathers. I gave them a chick waterer and chick starter feed on a big piece of plywood to cover the mud.
I went out again an hour later to find the moms and 1 baby walking around (eating and drinking) but no other baby. I looked in the nest and it was there 2 blinks away from being dead.Cold, twitching, and not peeping or moving. Ugh. I brought it in and washed it with a hot wet washcloth and blow dried it...using an old toothbrush to brush it and stimulate it. It did work some, and i carried it around in my shirt top for a bit after that until I thought to set up a shoe box with soft rags in hit and a light over it to keep the baby warm while I had to work this afternoon. I gave it a drop of PolyViSol too.
When I came home from work, it was sitting up and peeping and doing great. I waited a bit then brought it back out to its family. It walked around with the other baby for a bit and looked fine. I had to pick my daughter up from a NJHS mtg 2 min away at her school and when we came home, we found it dead, with its head through a hole in the chicken wire, sticking into the adjacent chicken pen. It wasn't caught...so I'm thinking maybe a chicken came and pecked it.
Talk about heartbreaking!

To bring that sweet baby back from the brink of death, only to lose it this same afternoon.

We are so sad, and thinking about incubating more Blue Swede eggs- under a broody chicken hen we have for now, then finishing in our incubator...so we have some more soft little blue duckies to love. This poor little lone one...a dad, 2 moms and an auntie! It'll be tired of being the only wee one!
I did babyproof that pen so the hopefully other baby can't get it's head thru any wire nearby it's nest or into the chicken pen.
Sorry for the long saga...it has been such a "ugh"day. (and it was my youngest son's 18th birthday too!)
Lisa

 

[chickenlisa]

sorry, but I have to add this bit of sad news. The other baby died overnight..I found it at 7 am- wet, muddy and trampled. I am never giving those Blue swedes another egg to hatch...they were great broodies, but horrible mothers. I'll let them set, but then take the eggs and hatch them indoors and brood them myself. I feel so sick about this...2 precious babies, perfectly formed and hatched, innocent to this world and then neglected by their own mothers...gone forever now.

 

[learycow]

sorry, but I have to add this bit of sad news. The other baby died overnight..I found it at 7 am- wet, muddy and trampled. I am never giving those Blue swedes another egg to hatch...they were great broodies, but horrible mothers. I'll let them set, but then take the eggs and hatch them indoors and brood them myself. I feel so sick about this...2 precious babies, perfectly formed and hatched, innocent to this world and then neglected by their own mothers...gone forever now.

Sorry to hear that

My khaki campbell hens are the same way. I let them hatch some eggs for me last year. As soon as a duckling would hatch, she would kick it out of the nest. I think she just wanted to sit on eggs! So after she kicked out 4 babies that ended up getting picked on by the other hens, I decided to keep track and take out the eggs 5 days before hatch date. Let her do the hard work (turning and keeping the eggs at the correct humidity) then I did the last bit (hatching!) It's much better than going out and finding little ones that were neglected by their own mother!

 

[grandma duck]

How devastating! So sorry.
Now I am really getting nervous about my Pekin broody hen. She has been sitting for 24 days now. What if she likes sitting on her eggs more than she likes what comes out of those eggs?!

I don't have an incubator. Never hatched eggies before. We used to put a monitor on a mare when a foal was due. I feel like I should put a fetal monitor on each egg.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I am so sorry to hear that bit of sad news.