- Mar 21, 2013
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Im hoping if this happens to someone else, they may be able to intervene so the end result comes out happier.
My little Rouen duck is a few months past a year old and she decided she wanted to hatch her own babies around June 29th. She was sitting on 5 eggs, which 3 were green and 2 were gray (from our Cayuga girl, Inky). She would sit on her eggs all day, then come out towards the evening to eat, drink and take a nice, cool dip in her pool. She would sometimes do this twice a day.
I've been staying out of town for the past month, except for weekends so my husband would send me updates throughout the week if there were any. Unfortunately, he called me with news that he had found a broken egg with a developed ducking, still absorbing the yolk dead, outside of the nest. Over this past weekend while I was home, I was doing my usual spraying down the deck, patio, refilling water buckets and cleaning ducky pools, I noticed my two 1.5yr old Pekins had a baby ducky by their feet. This poor little thing didn't have any shell around it, so we dont know what happened to it. Of course this has all been so heartbreaking for my husband and I. We felt if Huey wanted to hatch her owns eggs, that this would be best.
When it was time for me to leave for the week, with my husband also having to leave during the week for work...we left the house and ducjys in care of my husbands adult sons, who have been a part of our ducks since the day we purchased the little day-old duckling. I must say, that when I would try to rouse Huey during the day for food & water breaks, she would protest with some very determined, loud and unique quaky...so I figured she knew best.
Before heading out for home this past Thursday, exciting about being home at hatch day, my husband called and told me the remaining 3 ducklings had died. I was absolutely distraught. How could this have happened. ..they had made it this far. According to my stepson, he had been coming by the house everyday, freshing up the pool, filling food buckets and filling waterbuckets....he went to check on Huey and she was where she usually was...sitting on her eggs. Come Thursday, he decided to check on Huey more thoughroughly by moving her a bit to check on the eggs:
It appears, the ducklings were on the second half of hatching and Huey seem to think she needed to keep sitting, since my stepson found all three duckys had passed away underneath her. She apparently had gotten so weak that once she set down, she could no longer get herself up off the ducklings. When I was home last weekend, she was still leaving her nest to eat, drink and freshen up in her pool, so we just don't know how she became so weak so quickly.
We live in California and its pretty hot where we live, but her nest was in the shade at all times. Im not sure what I could've done to prevent this, other then force her out of her nest but I couldnt force her eat anymore then she already had. We thought letting nature take care of this process and trusting that Huey knew instinctually what to do, but things didn't turn out as we'd hoped it would.
Huey seems to be a bit lost right now. We have her in a special ducky house, so she can get her strength back but she'll stand in the same spot for over an hour, quaking on occasion in a very low tone. If anyone can give us or anyone else who may have this happen to them.....what should we have done for a better outcome? Can Huey be sad not having her babies?
My little Rouen duck is a few months past a year old and she decided she wanted to hatch her own babies around June 29th. She was sitting on 5 eggs, which 3 were green and 2 were gray (from our Cayuga girl, Inky). She would sit on her eggs all day, then come out towards the evening to eat, drink and take a nice, cool dip in her pool. She would sometimes do this twice a day.
I've been staying out of town for the past month, except for weekends so my husband would send me updates throughout the week if there were any. Unfortunately, he called me with news that he had found a broken egg with a developed ducking, still absorbing the yolk dead, outside of the nest. Over this past weekend while I was home, I was doing my usual spraying down the deck, patio, refilling water buckets and cleaning ducky pools, I noticed my two 1.5yr old Pekins had a baby ducky by their feet. This poor little thing didn't have any shell around it, so we dont know what happened to it. Of course this has all been so heartbreaking for my husband and I. We felt if Huey wanted to hatch her owns eggs, that this would be best.
When it was time for me to leave for the week, with my husband also having to leave during the week for work...we left the house and ducjys in care of my husbands adult sons, who have been a part of our ducks since the day we purchased the little day-old duckling. I must say, that when I would try to rouse Huey during the day for food & water breaks, she would protest with some very determined, loud and unique quaky...so I figured she knew best.
Before heading out for home this past Thursday, exciting about being home at hatch day, my husband called and told me the remaining 3 ducklings had died. I was absolutely distraught. How could this have happened. ..they had made it this far. According to my stepson, he had been coming by the house everyday, freshing up the pool, filling food buckets and filling waterbuckets....he went to check on Huey and she was where she usually was...sitting on her eggs. Come Thursday, he decided to check on Huey more thoughroughly by moving her a bit to check on the eggs:
It appears, the ducklings were on the second half of hatching and Huey seem to think she needed to keep sitting, since my stepson found all three duckys had passed away underneath her. She apparently had gotten so weak that once she set down, she could no longer get herself up off the ducklings. When I was home last weekend, she was still leaving her nest to eat, drink and freshen up in her pool, so we just don't know how she became so weak so quickly.
We live in California and its pretty hot where we live, but her nest was in the shade at all times. Im not sure what I could've done to prevent this, other then force her out of her nest but I couldnt force her eat anymore then she already had. We thought letting nature take care of this process and trusting that Huey knew instinctually what to do, but things didn't turn out as we'd hoped it would.
Huey seems to be a bit lost right now. We have her in a special ducky house, so she can get her strength back but she'll stand in the same spot for over an hour, quaking on occasion in a very low tone. If anyone can give us or anyone else who may have this happen to them.....what should we have done for a better outcome? Can Huey be sad not having her babies?
My other four are just great! Little healthy and happy balls of fluff! We have two makes and two females but no names picked out yet! There are pictures of them on this thread:
