I received a sad phone call yesterday from my friend. She and I are teachers and had hatched some duck eggs for her. We had trouble and only two of the Welsh Harlequin ducklings hatched. One of the babies had a wry neck which we treated with vitamins and supplements. Her neck greatly improved and she could hold her head straight but would bend her neck when she was stressed or sleeping. Anyway, my friend called to say that she found the wry neck duckling (8 weeks old) dead in her pool. We assume she drown. The other duckling, another girl, was beside herself. Since it would be difficult to find another duck friend for this one duck, I offered to add her to my flock of five (three Khaki Campbell hens, one Khaki drake, and one 1/2 Khaki, 1/2 Appleyard drake, all between 2-3 yrs old). She brought her eight week old duck to school today and I brought my most gentle Khaki hen. We have the two of them in a pen in a quite back room (with a small pool) and they seem to be getting along. I will be bringing them both home tomorrow after school. My plan is to slowly introduce her to everyone else. I can keep her and my sweet hen together in a pen within the rest of the duck pen. I can also separate the girls and boys and let her get used to the other girls long before meeting the boys. My reason for writing all of this is to ask if this is the right thing to do? Also, how old does she need to be before meeting the boys (I was thinking 12 weeks)? It has been a while since I had a young duck.
