duck dilemma!

[688peterl]

as you probably already know i started with 5 healthy fertile eggs, 3 of which are now dead which leaves me with 2....

what if just 1 hatches...

If just 1 hatches i do plan to hatch another one so the duck isnt alone but it will be alone for atleast a month while the new one is in the incubator!

so if it comes to it...

how do you raise a single pet duckling (for atleast a month after it is born) is there anything you can do to make it feel happier alone?

One thing i cannot do is start to incubate more eggs now, if more eggs are needed they wont be going in until these eggs are out

 

[Wifezilla]

You put a mirror and a turkey feather duster in the brooder as you desperately search for a buddy. It will "talk" to the other duck in the mirror and snuggle under the feather duster for warmth and comfort.

I had to to do that TWICE! LOL

 

[688peterl]

Quote:
yeah but thats the problem.. i wont be desperately searching for a buddy, i will be hatching one which will take a month

maybe the duck could be friends with my dog for that month... at first i thought the dog might frighten the duck but the other day i took the dog to see some ducks at a local farm and he was terrified! not in a bad way he was ok with one of the ducks tried to give it kisses lol but another duck started to peck at him and he kept running away crying lol, i also thought he didnt like cats because he goes crazy when nextdoors cat is in the garden but now i think hes just exited because when i was walking him yesterday and we saw a cat the same thing happened like what happened with the duck, the cat made a hissing sound at him and he jumped away and was yelping

 

[bufforp89]

I am raising a lone guinea and when it she was in the brooder I put a stuffed animal under her heat lamp and she would go under it and snuggle, I also handle her alot. Now she is bigger but not big enough to have free run like the chickens so I put her in an empty rabbit coop nest to one that has a few babies in it. They are seperated by fencing and although Im sure she would rather have other buddies they do provide some companionship.

 

[PlumTuckered]

I hatched 2 ducklings out a couple of days apart. Sadly little Miracle only lived 11 days. Since she passed I've had a mirror in with Scrappy, I have her in a homemade brooder in the foyer so she can see us walking around and hear us talking. I also take her out of the brooder about six times a day to walk around with me or lay on my chest, whichever she's in the mood for. She hollers a bit when I turn the t.v. off, she hollers a lot when I turn out the livingroom lights cause she knows I'm heading to bed without her. She has her teletubby in there with her, she loves to play with that silly thing. Scrappy is one month old and precious as can be, not to mention spoiled rotten LOL I'm not sure when I'll introduce her to my 7 month old Pekins, but I plan to keep her in the house as long as I can get away with it ;-) I mentioned the other day that if she wore a diaper she'd have less mess and my DH almost had a stroke at the thought , so I just keep cleaning up after her every hour.
I have one fresh duck egg from my big gals at the moment, however I don't know if I'm going to hatch more this year or not.

Michelle

 

[Le Canard de Barbarie]

Last summer I had one muscovy hatch out of eleven eggs. Couldn't put the duck in a brooding pen of his age group, so I raised him in the pantry. He would get so lonely that I would put him in a small box next to me on the couch just for company. When at three weeks of age, he was moved to an empty brooder pen where he could see other ducks through the wire. Eventually he was released with the others, and spent a good amount of time learning about the hierarchy of the flock. When he turned twelve weeks old, I ate him.

 

[eggybritches]

Quote:

I shouldn't have lol'ed, but I did.

You're horrible.

 

[nettie]

i had this problem with ming mei... her shipping buddy died at 6 days old and we didn't get victor for two weeks after that... So we gave ming mei a mirror and a stuffed toy that was fluffy (we had a couple so some could be washed but so she always had one). She imprinted on me and cried when i left the room, so i hung a picture of me in her brooder to help her. We made lots of toys available to her (various bird toys with bells, crinkles, color, etc). If i had to leave, i hired my 10 year old nephew to "duck sit" and keep her company. When I could, i put her in a carrier and brought her with me (she came to a pizza joint with my mom, a chinese food place, gas stations, walmart, menards, etc. We tried to bring her in a waffle house but they had a cow, which is funny because waffle house is by no means a classy establishment... in the words of comic jim gaffigan, it's like getting a waffle in a gas station bathroom. lol.) Whenever i had absolutly no choice but to leave her home alone, i put the tv on for her.

You might have the problem if you get another younger duckling, they may not get along... ming mei constantly bit and abused victor cause he was smaller. i only let them actually be together when they were in the tub and when i could watch them. i brooded them in two seperate plastic totes with windows so they could see each other can keep each other company, but with a barrier so they could eat each other. lol

 

[688peterl]

i just candled the eggs now and these 2 look as though they are certain to hatch, i can actually see the babies moving inside the egg! sort of twitching and jerking from side to side on their own because i dont pick them up to candle them...

only problem is one of the eggs doesnt turn as well as the other! one of them does a full 180 turn everytime the incubator autoturns but the other egg doesnt move at all unless the incubator is turning clockwise (it turns clockwise, then anticlockwise, then clockwise you get the picture) so this means that one of the eggs is only getting half the amount of turns than the other egg, but because i set autoturn at 2 hours even the dodgy turning egg is turning every 4 hours so heshe should be ok hopefully!

 

[chickensioux]

I have raised 1 duckling alone before the only problem I had was it made the duck very friendly. Enjoy!!!!!