Babies inside a planter

[Miss Lydia]

Snapping turtles too! It’s sad but you did the right thing helping them out of that pot.

 

[Gallinarium]

I've been checking all day and you're right, they haven't returned to the nest. I left the steps I made going into the planter just in case.

But they went right into the water and swam beautifully alongside the mama. Doing a search I read if they're too young they can't swim, but they must be a couple days old at least because they were doing great.

I just hope I did the right thing. They had no food or water sitting inside that planter and I was afraid they'd slowly starve. Now i'm afraid of predators, but at least that will be nature's way I guess. And they make the cutest little sounds when calling for their mama. I hope they do well. But it's most likely only 2 or 3 will make it to adulthood with all the predators around.

You can only hope for their safety from predation, but "wild" ducklings are usually good at swimming. Mama usually knows what's best. Glad the duckies are fine.

 

[chris330r]

There's another clutch by the brown ducks that come by here too...they're just a few days old as well and they swim SO fast when a turtle comes by...they're like little speedboats lol. I was amazed at their speed in the water!!

The clutch I rescued from the planter is from the one eyed muscovy and she had a clutch last year that she seemed to have abandoned after a few days. Being a one eyed duck, I think hinders her ability to protect them. So sadly, I don't have much hope for the babies. But at least they got set free to enjoy a few days of a happy short life in the water instead of withering away in the planter.

 

[nao57]

I've been checking all day and you're right, they haven't returned to the nest. I left the steps I made going into the planter just in case.

But they went right into the water and swam beautifully alongside the mama. Doing a search I read if they're too young they can't swim, but they must be a couple days old at least because they were doing great.

I just hope I did the right thing. They had no food or water sitting inside that planter and I was afraid they'd slowly starve. Now i'm afraid of predators, but at least that will be nature's way I guess. And they make the cutest little sounds when calling for their mama. I hope they do well. But it's most likely only 2 or 3 will make it to adulthood with all the predators around.

OK, I have a few comments for you.

Originally you said that you didn't think that she'd be a good mom. But then you saw she was upset when you meddled.

The difference of this can be that you hear about all the time where the first time an animal like a rabbit or others (and possibly ducks), will sort of malfunction on their motherhood instinct on the first round of babies, but then do fine on later sets of babies.

It sounds like if she was mad at you that she probably has fully functioning motherhood because she sees you as a predator.

Also there is what's called 'tree nesting ducks'.

You can look these up on your own. The traits they have are incredible and amazing as a type of wild duck. They nest their clutch of eggs all the way up in a tree, at extreme heights. Then when their eggs hatch, they have them literally fall out of the tree to follow the mother. And somehow they survive this. I'm not sure why they can endure it.

And I'm not sure if all ducks could survive it or if just that type can. It would be reasonable to think some of the ability to endure a fall would exist in most duck breeds. But I don't think all could fall from such extreme heights like that particular species. (And I'm not going to test it and find out why.)

However, what made me aware of this is that a few days ago I had a newborn duckling literally jump out of my arms and fall on the ground. And it was fine. It scared the hell out of me honestly, because already that one's siblings didn't do well in the incubator.

Anyway, some of the stuff on the net is garbage.

Like for example, the net says that newborn ducklings can't swim. But there are very clearly videos of people all over the world that have clips of ducklings swimming with the mother duck at only 2 or 3 days old. And how would they know how to swim before they could walk? And some of them can swim quite fast even as hatchlings.

Its clear that there's a lot of research yet to be done.

There's a guy named Shinji in Japan with Youtube videos of this same kind of duck with ducklings also. (I wonder what kind it is. It has like a red flame hair thing with a pointed beak.)(Possibly brigander breed or something, not sure if I said it right.)

The video above also brings up interesting theory questions about how 'brooding' develops in duck communities also. According to this video he suggests, the oldest living female duck gets the mother in charge ping in her somehow.

 

[chris330r]

When I was searching for how ducks could get out of the planter on their own, I read that baby ducks can survive a 2 story fall and be just fine. There were stories on ducks nesting on balconies high up and fall down to follow the mama and are fine. They seem very resilient when they're born.

The mama snipping at me is a good sign then of her motherhood instincts? Hopefully then she'll be better with these. The mama has known me since she was a baby 3 years ago herself and knows i'm not her enemy.

Since she got her eye poked out by a predator as a baby i've always made sure to favor her when I throw out food, so hopefully she knew I wasn't threatening to her babies and was only helping.

I'll update when I see her again and hope she won't be all alone.