- Oct 19, 2010
- 15
- 0
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Hi,
I have chickens and runner ducks, yesterday I looked outside and noticed the chickens flinging something in the air, I ran out to discover a newly hatched still covered with yolk duckling. I brought it in and set it up with a heat lamp (90 degrees) shavings, etc. it had a small scratch but otherwise seemed unscathed, through out the day, it recovered nicely, standing, moving about, chirping, etc. @ 11:00pm I tried to introduce water and food, it did not eat or drink, I had read up to 24 hours was the time to wait to feed/water so I wasn't concerned thought I was jumping the gun. It was dead this morning, needless to say I'm pretty disappointed in my "nursing" skills. I found another egg hidden in the yard and candled it, seems to be about ready, that one is in an incubator. My question is how to proceed, I can't give the duckling back as I'm not sure about the mothers parenting skills, I don't have the means to separate her from the others, any thoughts on where I went wrong...how to do better this time??
Thanks
I have chickens and runner ducks, yesterday I looked outside and noticed the chickens flinging something in the air, I ran out to discover a newly hatched still covered with yolk duckling. I brought it in and set it up with a heat lamp (90 degrees) shavings, etc. it had a small scratch but otherwise seemed unscathed, through out the day, it recovered nicely, standing, moving about, chirping, etc. @ 11:00pm I tried to introduce water and food, it did not eat or drink, I had read up to 24 hours was the time to wait to feed/water so I wasn't concerned thought I was jumping the gun. It was dead this morning, needless to say I'm pretty disappointed in my "nursing" skills. I found another egg hidden in the yard and candled it, seems to be about ready, that one is in an incubator. My question is how to proceed, I can't give the duckling back as I'm not sure about the mothers parenting skills, I don't have the means to separate her from the others, any thoughts on where I went wrong...how to do better this time??
Thanks
