waywayyyyytoomanyducks
Hatching
- Feb 13, 2018
- 1
- 9
- 9
A week ago, I walked outside into the yard to notice that there were several eggshells scattered throughout the backyard. As I got closer, I could smell something that made my stomach turn, and I knew what I was going to see before I saw it. Broken eggs with fetuses, almost fully-developed fetuses. I was absolutely heart-broken. So were the sitting muscovy hens, who kept looking at their nests as if their eggs would just reappear.
I would find out that night that my two youngest sisters (ages 5 and 7) had gone out into the yard and broken the eggs in a game. My mum was also very upset, but she knew that the girls hadn't known what they were doing. Our oldest muscovy is still sitting on her clutch of 5, however after a quick candle it looked like those would be the only five we'd be getting this season. I have been very angry with my sisters up until now, where I feel as though I can no longer be angry without being a hypocrite, because I feel as though I have done something much, much worse.
There's no easy way to say this... After eight years of raising poultry with my family, even after hand-raising a hatch of ten ducklings from an incubator after their mum decided to up and leave two years ago, I have done something that I feel like I won't ever be able to forgive myself for.
This duckling was the only successful hatch from any of the five new mums nesting, but mama duck was adamant that she should remain in the nest despite the other ones not hatching (it is her first time), so this duckling wasn't being led towards food or water and was instead running around the yard with no one taking care of it. My family decided to take it inside and feed it, and set it up under a heating lamp so we could observe it (we'd seen a similar thing happen with a gosling last year, which didn't make it despite taking it to our local vet).
This duckling, Patty (because she liked pats) was the spunkiest duckling, always running around and trying to steal food (and sometimes trying to get at our earings), and always crawling all over us asking for pats. I had fallen asleep on the couch several times throughout the past couple of days with Patty, and Patty had always made herself space and crawled around when I did so. Two nights ago, after her incessant cheeping, I let her into my bed and fell back asleep, and she was fine then, too. But last night (in fact not even an hour ago) I woke up early from my alarm and immediately looked for her, and she was dead. I feel like the most terrible human being, I just couldn't do anything but hold her and stare. I hadn't even been asleep for more than three hours, yet she was gone. I'm so angry with myself, I was planning on putting her into her box with the lamp before bed, but she was snuggled up and sleeping so I didn't want to wake her, and I ended up falling asleep. I feel so guilty, this baby has been following me around and looking to me for comfort, she thought I was her mum, she must've been so confused that her mum was killing her.
We have our oldest muscovy sitting on a clutch of five or six, but I'm not even sure if I can look at them when they hatch. Am I just being dramatic, or am I really an awful person?
I would find out that night that my two youngest sisters (ages 5 and 7) had gone out into the yard and broken the eggs in a game. My mum was also very upset, but she knew that the girls hadn't known what they were doing. Our oldest muscovy is still sitting on her clutch of 5, however after a quick candle it looked like those would be the only five we'd be getting this season. I have been very angry with my sisters up until now, where I feel as though I can no longer be angry without being a hypocrite, because I feel as though I have done something much, much worse.
There's no easy way to say this... After eight years of raising poultry with my family, even after hand-raising a hatch of ten ducklings from an incubator after their mum decided to up and leave two years ago, I have done something that I feel like I won't ever be able to forgive myself for.
This duckling was the only successful hatch from any of the five new mums nesting, but mama duck was adamant that she should remain in the nest despite the other ones not hatching (it is her first time), so this duckling wasn't being led towards food or water and was instead running around the yard with no one taking care of it. My family decided to take it inside and feed it, and set it up under a heating lamp so we could observe it (we'd seen a similar thing happen with a gosling last year, which didn't make it despite taking it to our local vet).
This duckling, Patty (because she liked pats) was the spunkiest duckling, always running around and trying to steal food (and sometimes trying to get at our earings), and always crawling all over us asking for pats. I had fallen asleep on the couch several times throughout the past couple of days with Patty, and Patty had always made herself space and crawled around when I did so. Two nights ago, after her incessant cheeping, I let her into my bed and fell back asleep, and she was fine then, too. But last night (in fact not even an hour ago) I woke up early from my alarm and immediately looked for her, and she was dead. I feel like the most terrible human being, I just couldn't do anything but hold her and stare. I hadn't even been asleep for more than three hours, yet she was gone. I'm so angry with myself, I was planning on putting her into her box with the lamp before bed, but she was snuggled up and sleeping so I didn't want to wake her, and I ended up falling asleep. I feel so guilty, this baby has been following me around and looking to me for comfort, she thought I was her mum, she must've been so confused that her mum was killing her.
We have our oldest muscovy sitting on a clutch of five or six, but I'm not even sure if I can look at them when they hatch. Am I just being dramatic, or am I really an awful person?
