Babies!!! :D

[offdagridsoon]

One of our Cayugas started hatching out her clutch of 13 eggs sometime between last night and this morning, and there are at least 5 or 6 of the little guys hatched so far!

I'm about to head out to the feed store to grab some duckling feed, and have left two small dishes of water in the nesting area so that Mum doesn't get too dry...it's really hot out here today and the coop is on the warm side.

We'll be throwing the brooder together this afternoon, and will be using puppy pads (provided I can find them) with a light layer of shavings over top.

Is there anything I need to keep in mind between now and then? Mum has been setting on the eggs in the main coop area, which is also home to 5 roosters, one drake and one other female Cayuga. Would I be right in assuming that the brooder should be kept physically separated from the other birds, or has anyone else been doing it differently?

Thanks much for any suggestions!

 

[L0rraine]

Sounds like you have things well under control (more so than I ever do).

I find it's a pain to deal with brooding Moms and babies in the company of other fowl. It can get pretty difficult trying to protect the babies. Will you be separating the ducklings from the Mom duck? Seems cruel, but as someone said the other day (Bleenie?), it can be sooooo much easier? Of course I didn't do it and I kick myself several times a day now anytime I have to try to do something for the ducklings. My arm looks diseased from all the angry Mom bites.

My recent batch of ducklings started gobbling up the wet shavings, so I put pads on top of the shavings now - don't know if that's okay or not. Have fun!!! and share pics when you've got them.

 

[offdagridsoon]

lol....thank you! I will for sure put up some pics when I get a chance. Just got in from picking up the duckling feed (well, organic chick feed and organic turkey poult feed, which have to be mixed together for the proper protein amount) and puppy pads, and am off to scour the kiddy pool so I can turn it into a brooder! There were 7 I counted when I was last out there, but I couldn't see all of them since Mum was sitting on them. Well, at least the all but 2 of them, who hadn't fallen out of the nesting box (the 2 escapees were placed, happy and peeping, back in with Mum). lol

Looks like we'll have to make a quick decision on whether to separate or not. Is there a real danger of the other birds going after the chicks? The rest of them stay out of the coop during the day as they prefer to be outside, but they'll all be heading back in late afternoon/early evening, so I'll have to figure it out before then..

:

 

[L0rraine]

Well the couple of times I've allowed this to happen the Moms (one time a hen the other a duck) were all to happy to usher their two day old babies outside into the fray AND THEN try to defend them. With my duck it was bad planning on my part -- I hadn't figured that the ducklings could dash right through the protective fencing and then didn't seem to have a clue which duck was their real mom. There was momma duck on one side of the fence quacking away, and the babies desperately searching for a momma duck on the other side. You'd think they would recognize their real mom's quacks and run back through the fence, but they didn't. I didn't lose any babies, but had a couple of emotional round-ups.

 

[L0rraine]

Well it turned out that the "pads on top of the shavings" I mentioned above was a BAD idea. One of the ducklings I separated from Mom started limping (and I thought it was because of the time during the day it spent with the rest of the ducklings). Now I'm pretty sure I was wrong and I was the culprit. Apparently the pee pads are slippery and the edges of the enclosure slop up (where she hangs out a lot) and she's slipping and twisting her leg while I'm trying to protect her. Aarrgh Guess I'll have to go figure out something else. The others do pick on her a bit (and the Mom's don't seem to be protective at all), so I feel like I'm all she's got. Guess I'll go back to straw, because I really was concerned about her eating the wet shavings.