WELL ladies and gentlemen. Im going to tell you a story. Tonight i went to lock up my chickens in the pouring rain. After doing so and getting soaked, i noticed one of the eggs from my broody call duck rolled out from under her so i went to check it out. The egg was cold and broken nearly in half and I immediately took it out of the cage and put it on the ground. Then I rearranged her nest a little more securely and stopped to open the egg and see what i had lost. WELL. It was NOT lost. I carefully opened the egg a little bit and got very sad when i saw the baby duck MOVE! I knew it would surely die and i didnt know what to do with it. So, me being me, thought to myself, “well i cant just leave it on the ground in the cold rain to die slowly! At least let me take it inside and warm it.” WELL. Upon closer inspection i saw that the membrane for the egg had completely separated from the egg in one piece.... no broken veins, just a living duckling in a little amniotic sac. So now my heart is beating faster and im laughing at my overly-compassionate self for trying to save this little duck that is destined to die, but i couldnt help myself. I couldnt just give up without TRYING. So i delicately slid the little sac into a plastic bag, and ran it under warm water. The duckling began to move more. Im in full panic and excitement mode, this might actually work...then i slid it from the bag to a plastic-wrap hammock pictured below. Its being held by a wine glass filled with warm water, and has some more plastic wrap as a lid. I fired up my 2010 hovabator and now i have a chick in a cup in an incubator and im 100% sure its gonna die but also so interested to see if maybe.... just maybe.... it might live.
BEHOLD:
BEHOLD:
