Ok, This thread's purpose is three-fold: 1) To get advice on adoptions, 2) To chronicle my experiences for others, and 3) To show pics of the babies here this year! Ok, a little background... I had 2 Pekin nests, but 3 Pekin Moms. One mom sat with her friend consistently, the other Pekin was alone. The pair of Old Ladies, well, they are old. At least 4 years. The other Pekin, just one year. First lesson learned was: Age makes a huge difference in mothering styles, just like in humans! So, both these nests were started quite early, and the moms had moved them from outdoors to indoors, how? I do not know but they did. Anyway, the eggs' time outdoors subjected them to freezing temperatures and I suspect that is why the eggs did not hatch for moms. I did see 4 feathered embryos along the way and had one live hatch after helping it along, but nothing survived, very sadly. So my thought was, "Hey, I'll get my moms from the Farm Supply to adopt, then we'll all be happy!"...
Adoption #1 was one week before Easter. I bought 3 Pekins to give to the 2 Old Ladies, the ducklings were eagerly and very quickly accepted as their own. To see an early pic of the tiny fluffy with its 2 moms, head over to the Old Fashioned Broody Thread 2013, that's where it is. (I guess it retrospect, that isnt exactly "Old Fashioned," now is it?!
) Anyway, all is very well with that adoption, those ducklings are surviving and thriving, and will be 2 weeks old tomorrow. They are quite tall, as Pekins are, yet this morning I went out to find moms still sitting on them. Adoption #1 has been an overwhelming success so far! I told my Duck-Friends this story already, so feel free to pass on if you already know this, but the day that I gave the babies to the moms, I did not remove the remaining eggs, I just approached their area with the box of ducklings, who were of course, peeping as they do, and just the sound of those babies sent my Old Ladies into Mothering-Overdrive. I set the ducklings on the straw, and one mom started herding the ducklings to the nest while the other attacked my arm, like "Stay Away From Our Babies!" So that was a clear success very early on.
The Old Ladies quick acceptance spoiled me, I foolishly thought all adoptions would go so smoothly... Lesson #2: Don't expect an adoption to go smoothly!
Adoption #2 went like this with my one year old Pekin first time broody mom: Again I left the remaining eggs. I gave her 4 Runner ducklings yesterday. She was ambivalent, like she wasn't kicking them out, but she wasn't really accepting them either. One died last night. So upon friendly and wise advice from experienced people, I thought I'd removed the remaining eggs-- but today I found one I'd accidentally left behind. (The smelly one, of course). Then mom seemed to settle down a bit, and when I left her at 10pm last night, she was hunkered down into her (quite tall in my opinion) straw nest. I set up the IR heat lamp just in case, but off to the side a bit. As last night touched 32'F, my opinion was that it shouldn't be harmful if she were to sit well, and insurance if she didn't. I went out at first light this morn, the 3 ducklings were snuggled very well underneath her. Then they came up for feed and water. Mom and Ducklings sort-of "hovered" off to the side for several minutes, then they went back to the nest, but mom never really sat down This mom is and has been very irritable with me all along, she doesnt even want me so much as looking in her direction, so my sincere hope is that after I left, she sat herself down properly. I will be going out to check again soon, but I know that when I do, she will stand up again, and this cycle will repeat. Perhaps with the supplemental heat from the lamp and daytime temps, she may not need to sit so deeply in the straw?
This 2nd Adoption has had 25% fatality rate and has been highly stressful for me, and I'm sure, all my Duck Friends that I keep Pm'ing for advice! Please add here if you have any suggestions (besides vitamins in water, already doing that), I want these new babies to survive well like the first group. Thank you for reading. I kindly ask that if you choose to post a reply, please trim your posts. I think that it would be courteous to future readers to try to keep things more condensed and organized, less repetition and for those on a Bandwidth Budget, fewer megabytes (or whatever they are called). Thank you.
Watchful Waiting, Hoping, Holly
&
Adoption #1 was one week before Easter. I bought 3 Pekins to give to the 2 Old Ladies, the ducklings were eagerly and very quickly accepted as their own. To see an early pic of the tiny fluffy with its 2 moms, head over to the Old Fashioned Broody Thread 2013, that's where it is. (I guess it retrospect, that isnt exactly "Old Fashioned," now is it?!
The Old Ladies quick acceptance spoiled me, I foolishly thought all adoptions would go so smoothly... Lesson #2: Don't expect an adoption to go smoothly!
Adoption #2 went like this with my one year old Pekin first time broody mom: Again I left the remaining eggs. I gave her 4 Runner ducklings yesterday. She was ambivalent, like she wasn't kicking them out, but she wasn't really accepting them either. One died last night. So upon friendly and wise advice from experienced people, I thought I'd removed the remaining eggs-- but today I found one I'd accidentally left behind. (The smelly one, of course). Then mom seemed to settle down a bit, and when I left her at 10pm last night, she was hunkered down into her (quite tall in my opinion) straw nest. I set up the IR heat lamp just in case, but off to the side a bit. As last night touched 32'F, my opinion was that it shouldn't be harmful if she were to sit well, and insurance if she didn't. I went out at first light this morn, the 3 ducklings were snuggled very well underneath her. Then they came up for feed and water. Mom and Ducklings sort-of "hovered" off to the side for several minutes, then they went back to the nest, but mom never really sat down This mom is and has been very irritable with me all along, she doesnt even want me so much as looking in her direction, so my sincere hope is that after I left, she sat herself down properly. I will be going out to check again soon, but I know that when I do, she will stand up again, and this cycle will repeat. Perhaps with the supplemental heat from the lamp and daytime temps, she may not need to sit so deeply in the straw?
This 2nd Adoption has had 25% fatality rate and has been highly stressful for me, and I'm sure, all my Duck Friends that I keep Pm'ing for advice! Please add here if you have any suggestions (besides vitamins in water, already doing that), I want these new babies to survive well like the first group. Thank you for reading. I kindly ask that if you choose to post a reply, please trim your posts. I think that it would be courteous to future readers to try to keep things more condensed and organized, less repetition and for those on a Bandwidth Budget, fewer megabytes (or whatever they are called). Thank you.
Watchful Waiting, Hoping, Holly
