Well here are my long awaited photos of our new little Muscovy's. I did wonder if they would ever arrive. In them building their nests i found out that we had rats as eggs were going missing. just didn´t realise how many. this is still an ongoing problem but they are taking the bait every night so fingers crossed we will soon be rat free.
First mum only got 4 babies. ( after started with 25 eggs) the first two hatched she trod on and squashed and four were non starters. The others stolen
second mum had 14, however this was not easily achieved. On checking her almost a week over due i saw something in the nest and went to check. It was a dead duckling, squashed and pushed into the side of the nest, then another. I pushed her up to see underneath and horror.
Nearly every egg was pipped or crushed. I grabbed the most affected and could see the babies still alive, so i rushed the worse 5 up to an incubator that had hen eggs in and placed another 6 under a broody hen ( on her first day haha) and left the rest with mum. All night nothing, nest morning nothing till around 10.0 am. All the incubator ones hatched within 15 mins of each other and the hen ones a little later. It was well into the afternoon before the mums eggs hatched. I had to help them too as they seemed to be shrink wrapped. All but one egg hatched. On opening the final egg we found she had twins and that why it didnt hatch.. Fully formed but unable to come out.
I placed the chicks back with her once they had fluffed in the incubator and from under a rather cross hen. I thought it was best mum raised them as ducks herself.
Not sure why mum crushed her eggs but i have heard they can sometimes be a little over help full in trying to help them hatch. maybe it was that. Our last nest is still to hatch, in about a weeks time. fingers crossed it will run smoothly but i am guessing not as she has made it in a tyre and there is nowhere for her legs to go when they start hatching so it might be a case of crushing them again, i will keep watch .
we also have one other muscoy that is building a nest now have 11 eggs so far.
Hope you enjoy the photos.
