Lots o ducklings

[North Woods Quack]

Hello Backyard crew, just wanted to let you know that I took your good advice regarding NOT letting 2-3 girl ducks set the same nest (Woes of a Communal Nest thread). After that disaster (3 girl on 11 eggs and they only hatched out one duckling) I put together another clutch in a big dog crate, reinforced with hardware cloth to keep out egg stealers like (ugh!) rats and skunks and my dear Silver Appleyard, Matilda, took over. Twenty-eight days later the eggs started hatching and within 24 hours everyone was out of the eggs and under mom. Eight eggs, eight baby ducks. 100% success! They hatched out last Saturday, July 8th, just before the Vermont Rain/Flood Apocalypse on Monday 7/12 (8-10 inches in 24 hours, all our rivers and creeks jumped the banks and took out roads and low lying buildings. Luckily I am on higher ground). Mom and the babes were running around my front lawn in this deluge, loving it! They especially loved all the new swimming holes and puddles that appeared. I am always amazed at how quickly baby ducks take to water.
They are now mingling with the other seven ducks though I close them into their reinforced dog crate at night. I have learned not to get too close to the babies as Mom is FIERCE if she hears a distress call. I once picked up a duckling that was having trouble getting out of the kiddy pool and Mom flew up in the air and basically dive bombed me, beating me with her wings and hissing horribly and poking me with her bill. (See the last photo below; that look: Don't mess with my babies!)
She is a super mom.

 

[Miss Lydia]

How funny. Gotta love these protective mamas! Congrats to mama and you for they great hatch. Adorable mama and babies

 

[Lor]

Glad to hear the hatch went well!

 

[Canadian Wind]

Awww, so sweet! Grats on the hatch, and watch your fingers!

 

[North Woods Quack]

Thanks all for the love. I love a good broody/momma no matter the breed or variety. This mom reminds me of my late great heritage bronze turkey hen, who I had for 9 years and every year hatched out 8-10 poults. She had the full set of instructions, as I like to say.
Below, first photo shows the communal set up that happened end of May. My girl Matilda has been pushed off to the right side by her beautiful and very bossy sister, Maude, who has most of the eggs under HER! In early June I set up the crate and allowed the duck mommas to volunteer. Matilda promptly took on another round of incubating duty, with my Pekin drake, Doh! watching over her protectively.
Sadly, the one little duckling from the first nest, Pretzel, shown here with my granddaughter Arya, who named him/her, disappeared when it was about 2 1/2 weeks old while I was at work. When I got home all the other ducks were walking around the yard like, no big deal, but no Pretzel. No plouf of feathers or other sign of attack. I fear a hawk came in and carried the wee one off. So now I have to think about maybe making a smaller yard with netting over it. We do have a lot of hawks around. Ugh.