Box O' Ducklings

Look what arrived this morning from Holderreads......

 

peep peep peeeeeeep


Millie, at Holderreads, filled my last minute order with as many extra exhibition stock Runners as hatched yesterday plus a few other exhibition stock ducklings and a bonus duckie. She took them to her post office late yesterday, and my P.O. called me this morning at 8:30am to pick them up!

The breeds and varieties are:
Runners: 2 white, 2 penciled, 1 black, 1blue, 1 chocolate
Other breeds: 2 Saxony, 1 Silver Appleyard, 1 Welsh Harlequin, and the bonus Ancona.

They will hopefully be adopted and raised by a sebastopol goose that has been sitting on infertile eggs for weeks.
We spent all afternoon prepping her end of the run for the ducklings and then getting her to take them in. We only put in the 4 largest ducklings to start (in case there was trouble) and will add the rest later tonight or tomorrow.
At first she just checked them out and then rearranged her eggs and ignored the ducklings. I blocked the nest box so that the ducklings couldnt wander off and then I just kept lifting her wing and putting them underneath, only to have them tumble out and wander away again. Finally, after a couple hours of this, the duckies got chilly enough that they wanted to snuggle, and she, at last, lifted her wing and let them in. Whew! I had hung a light over her nest box just in case, but I really wanted the ducklings to want to snuggle with her.



Here is a shot of them in the garden followed by a pic of the surrogate Mom.

chel

 

Sure, you can use it on your desktop. No commercial use. Any other use needs to be credited:
Photo by chel for Backyardchickens.com

okay?


chel