HELP Please...Sick Indian Runner Ducks!

[ttclan]

Thank you for caring.

These girls (and boys) are favorites around here. We love our animals, quite a lot. I cried myself to sleep last night thinking that they were gone. I've cried over chickens dying...my family thinks I'm a little too sensitive

 

[HollyDuckFarmer]

Mine thinks I'm obsessed with ducks! LOL It is very hard not to get attached. I understand.

 

[ttclan]

We started out as chicken owners only. But then one of the members here had the two older runners and needed a new home and she lived within a few hours of us. My daughter is allergic to chicken eggs, but had tried duck eggs in the past, so we adopted the two last year. They have been such a joy and so much easier to care for than chickens. Our daughter has loved them so much too and enjoys getting eggs she can eat like the rest of us.

The girls have been a great addition to the farm and come up to the cabin daily in search for table treats.

This past Spring we bought more ducklings in hopes to get a drake and begin raising our own. Our one duck went broody on us in January, for 11 weeks she sat on chicken eggs! If I had known she would sit that long I would have let her keep eggs to hatch, but I kept thinking she was going to give it up.

We ended up buying day old ducklings and put them under her, she took to them immediately! Unfortunately, the night we brought them home the temps dropped well below freezing and two of the ducklings froze (the second duck even hopped in the box and sandwiched the ducklings between the two girls). I wish we had videoed the whole thing, they were such good mamas. We ended up rescuing the other two and raised them in the house because we weren't so sure they would make it. We did end up getting a couple more to replace the two and they are still with us. Our daughter had worked so hard to save and bought them herself, it was a hard lesson to learn, but we figured that if we were running a generator (we are off grid) and raising them in the house we ought to have more to raise!

We ended up with two drakes and are excited to think about next Spring! I hope that our duck does go broody again! I understand with Runners it's very rare.

Anyway, we just love our ducks. We'd love to work ourselves into replacing our chickens with ducks, but we'll see...my darling keeps telling me, "no more animals!!!!" Yet, some how, we keep adding more!