aileenpnz
In the Brooder
- Sep 26, 2016
- 12
- 0
- 12
I have only ever lived across from wild ducks but recently decided we needed some for the eggs and fell in love at first sight with a breeding pair of Welsh Harlequins which I then bought, driving narrow winding roads for about 8 hours and over 600kms -with my 3 y/o DD to get them... a large trip in the Kiwi mindset as it's nearly half the country. I was also blessed at the same time with a mix of 10 fertile, mixed eggs and promptly popped them under a bombproof broody I have... after 10 days of waiting for Quinella to get used to her new home and start laying again, hoping to induce her to sit as she had had 2 clutches (or is it broods? in the previous year. Harley her hubby proved to be a honey- very devoted to her and not in the least interested in the chickens in any way -unless vying for the same morsel - but we do have a creek down the bottom of the paddock. And the WH's presence has been encouraging the very little native Black Teal Ducks closer in (also known as Scaup- they are a tiny 40cm long and weigh only650g -almost as if they were a big bath toy!) Which is quite exciting as they are rather shy wee things. The eggs have htched and we have currently got 2 WH and 3 KC's with a few mortalities and mum removed from the cage due to attacks... Unfortunately she killed one KC duckling so I swapped in the surrogate hen mama. Out of 11 eggs we had 8 turn out viable -One hatchling was stepped on and died soon after hatching and I learnt the valuable lesson that an egg that hasn't hatched 2 days after the rest could just have been unevenly incubated - or have died a week before the rest as that was the size difference 
I wasn't familiar with the possibility of candling sitting eggs.
Small issue with me starting this thread... While not a technophobe I'm certainly not gifted at things like transferring pics off my cell phone or camera to the PC... partially because I am gifted at misplacing certain essential cords and things... AND aparrently files - as I haven't been able to find the only picture I had on here grr!
I wasn't familiar with the possibility of candling sitting eggs.Small issue with me starting this thread... While not a technophobe I'm certainly not gifted at things like transferring pics off my cell phone or camera to the PC... partially because I am gifted at misplacing certain essential cords and things... AND aparrently files - as I haven't been able to find the only picture I had on here grr!
