Good morning, everyone!
Good morning everyone.
That's AWESOME!! What breed ducky?
Mine are Welsh Harlequins so not the most prolific layers.
Cackle says 100-150 for the Welsh. I am ok with that number.
I have 1 Muscovy named Quacker Sparkles. One of my daughters witnessed a mother duck, and all her newly hatched babies, except 1, get killed by a car when trying to cross the highway. The one that didn't get hit, was the last in line, and ran when the others got hit. That daughter managed to grab the lone surviving duckling, but had no idea what to do with it, so she called another of my daughters.
The other daughter went over, saw the duckling, and knew it was traumatized, and young enough it needed to be in a brooder. They agreed the person that could help it, was mama (me). The second daughter, came over, and said "don't have a cow, have a duck", then pulled this duckling from behind her back.
I have chickens. I had some in one of the brooders at the time, but I had never dealt with a duck. I set up another brooder, got it a bowl for water, and gave it some chicken feed. I then messaged someone that I know, that raises ducks. They assured me, I did fine. They also informed me that their ducklings wouldn't eat duck food, so chicken feed was fine, BUT I had to give the duck niacin. As luck would have it, Dh is on blood pressure medicine, and has to take niacin with it. I crushed a tablet, and sprinkled a pinch on the feed. It was very traumatized, but did eat, and drink.
We didn't bother it too much that first day, or the next. By the third day, everyone in the family would spend time talking to it, then taking it out of the brooder for short periods of time to hold, and comfort it. Flock animals sometimes don't do so well without other flock members. We became it's flock. It thrived. It got swim time in the bathtub daily, when it got a bit bigger.
Muscovies grow to be a good sized duck. After it feathered out good, I got one of the really large dog crates, and put it on our screened in patio, along with a small tub for it to use for swim time. Every time someone went out on the patio, which is often, they let the duck out of the crate. The older grands would tell the duck all about their day in school every day. The youngest granddaughter (not in school yet at the time) moved one of her small chairs by the duck crate. She would take her tablet out there, and sing nursery rhymes to the duck, teach it to count, and it's ABC's.
Since our pool is out there too, there is a drain that runs from one end of the patio, to the other. It's to prevent the house from flooding, in case the pool overflows, BUT it makes it super easy to hose the patio down, and clean up after the duck, and dump the water from the tub, so the water in the tub is fresh for it each day. As it grew, I got bigger tubs for swim time. One day, my youngest granddaughter insisted the duck would be named Quacker Sparkles, and it stuck.
For awhile, Quacker Sparkles would spread her wings, and flap them. One day, we were all pleasantly surprised when there was lift off. The duck could fly. Yes, it managed to get into the pool a couple times, but we chased it out right away, and bathed it so the chlorine couldn't hurt it.
We still didn't know the gender, but it didn't really matter. One morning, I was pleasantly surprised with an egg. Quacker Sparkles is a girl. For a short time this winter, she quit laying, but as I mentioned earlier, she has resumed laying.
Some people have cats for pets. Some people have dogs for pets. We have a duck.
have a great Thursday 
