duck-lady
Chirping
OK so I just really wanted a rant. So every day I collect my duck eggs, except for the last two weeks two of my girls have been sitting and I have just left them to it in the top of the coop.
My other girls have continued to lay in the bottom and I have been collecting those. So today I went down and collected the eggs and checked on the two girls in the top (i check them at least twice a day) only to find a third female laying, along with the other girls, in the bare corner, where the sitting girls have nicked the straw from. So I take the eggs.
I candle them all anyway to make sure I dont take one that is being incubated and, lo and behold, we have sproglets. The third girl must have taken on the duties of the other two in sitting on eggs they couldnt quite manage. More straw in the top then.
So instead of meithering the girls again, i gently clean the eggs to set in the incubator... Not gently enough. One of the eggs detonates leaving a tiny, wriggly baby in my hands. Mortified doesnt cover it.
My other girls have continued to lay in the bottom and I have been collecting those. So today I went down and collected the eggs and checked on the two girls in the top (i check them at least twice a day) only to find a third female laying, along with the other girls, in the bare corner, where the sitting girls have nicked the straw from. So I take the eggs.
I candle them all anyway to make sure I dont take one that is being incubated and, lo and behold, we have sproglets. The third girl must have taken on the duties of the other two in sitting on eggs they couldnt quite manage. More straw in the top then.
So instead of meithering the girls again, i gently clean the eggs to set in the incubator... Not gently enough. One of the eggs detonates leaving a tiny, wriggly baby in my hands. Mortified doesnt cover it.