My first successful hatch, good job mommies! PICS

[RavenStorm]

So, some of you know that I bought ducklings from lovesduckies (AKA Heather) from our duck board last year. Some of you also know that recently her Muscovy hen, the mommy of my ducks, went missing. Apparently, my clutch that I bought was her only successful hatch. I just found out about this today because I wanted to share my good news so I looked up lovesduckies to tell her. How sad! Heather, I know it's been about a week now but I'm going to keep hoping that you can find her!

I hope the pictures of your grand-baby ducklings will help ease the pain. They all started to hatch sometime last night and have been continuing to hatch throughout the day. I just got home and found a new wet baby getting cleaned!

On the left we have Paloma, on the right we have Pinky, and in between we have the first signs of the squee-able cuteness!

Here is the third mommy, Bucky, with the rest of the hidden babies after her sisters went for a quick bite

 

[satay]

They are sooo cute

 

[wren]

soo cute!

 

[Goat_Walker]

WHOA whats the total count on the cutness? lol I remember those days, 40 - 50 ducklings at a time

 

[lovesduckies]

aweee they are so adorable!!! how cute. seeing them does ease some pain. i am having a duckie withdrawal. i want babies soooooo bad!! but i need hens first!!!

very cute!!

 

[RavenStorm]

Quote:
Whoa! That's a lot of ducklings! I would go into a diabetic coma from the sweetness o 40 to 50 babies based on my day so far with my small batch.

The girls never wanted to go broody before so they only had the one lay box that the three of them shared. Then out of no where they started plucking feathers and hanging out inside this tiny rubbermaid storage container with an open side together. I never got a good count on the eggs before they started to really sit, and I couldn't move them into a larger lay box for fear that they would stop. So I just let them stay cramped up like sardines in there this whole time and I wondered if anything would hatch at all.

Estimated final tally? It was 12 before I left for school around 10 this morning, and now it's 13. There's still about 5 or more unhatched eggs and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they'll make it, but considering the fact that all the other babies and the mommies are jostling them around like crazy and so far none of the rest have pipped I doubt it.

 

[C&Rman]

They are all on the same nest? Won't they fight over the babies? Sorry I am new to ducks but don't have any, if I do get some they will be muscovies...

 

[RavenStorm]

C&Rman :

They are all on the same nest? Won't they fight over the babies? Sorry I am new to ducks but don't have any, if I do get some they will be muscovies...

I asked that too. Actually, my main concern was that the hens would 'decide' one group was hers and would try to kill any of the others. I know wild birds will kill other babies to give their offspring (or what they think is their offspring) a better chance at survival so I wanted to make sure this would hash out ok first.

Everyone told me that they should be fine, and just now one of the hens was shoved out by the other two and isn't getting back inside the nest box. I'm going to make them move the babies into the dogloo tomorrow though in order to give them more room until I can find a buyer. I can't keep any of my new babies, and I really wanted some from my first hatch

 

[RavenStorm]

Ok, update on the sisters sharing the babies: even though I was told they would be fine, they weren't lol. Surprisingly, the hen at the bottom of the dominance chain went nuts and started attacking the duck on the top. They would struggle inside the lay box, then they would fight outside the box, and then try to get back in but the third mommy fought to keep the other two out. It got to the point that I had to take the babies away because they were getting smooshed, then neglected, and then fought over.