- Jan 30, 2019
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Sooooooo, this year we have two new (year old) Silver Appleyard females. On Mother’s Day, one of them (Apple) started sitting on a community egg pile. Shame on us, we’d only been removing eggs from the three laying females once per week. Several days passed with her sitting and only occasionally going out to play. At one point, we took the eggs away with the intent of destroying them.
However, my budding scientist son convinced me to candle the eggs to make sure we weren’t killing any viable ducklings. To our surprise, 15 of 18 showed potential signs of life! We put the eggs back and Apple immediately resumed sitting.
One day while she was off the nest, the Ancona female (Pepper) decided to start sitting on the same clutch of 15 eggs. When Apple returned, Pepper left without incident. Fast forward a few weeks: they sit side by side all day, sometimes they both have eggs under them (inside the “nest” and outside, right next to it). Sometimes one of them sits on all the eggs while the other takes a break.
Yes, apparently they’d been peacefully moving eggs back and forth on a regular basis. Then on June 2, the peeping began…
I approached the coop to give the moms some treats and heard it. I saw the telltale inside-out papery shell only a hatchling leaves behind. The eggs were in disarray, so I opened the top of the coop for a better look.
Pepper is standing up on the nest, furious, feathers ruffled and ready to fight, but I can see two eggs and two ducklings beneath her! All the while Apple is sitting placidly on a few remaining eggs (I can’t see how many at this point).
Both babies were mostly black (brown/gray?) with lighter colored throats and bellies. Both had light markings near their eyes. Both healthy and adorable as can be! My son and I gathered up the errant eggs and placed them back under the mamas. The females were sitting so close together they were touching, and the ducklings ran back and forth between their four legs.
The following morning, two more ducklings! These two looked nothing like their older siblings. Both were predominantly yellow with darker stripes running do then their heads and necks. Both have darker feathers in the tail area and all have be characteristic Ancona spotting on their bills and feet.
On the afternoon of the 3rd, two more ducklings! Both are the predominantly black color seen on the first two hatchlings. The moms are still sharing and cooperating, although there seems to be more quacking at each other. The moms have not yet led the babies out of the coop.
On the morning of the 4th, all ducks (moms, dad, aunt and six babies) emerge from the coop as soon as the door is opened! It’s a rainy day (tropical storm, in fact), so we humans huddle inside and watch the adorable scene unfold as baby ducklings experience rain, foraging, and puddles for the first time!
I waited for the rain to let up, to clear the unhatched eggs from the coop and freshen up their water. To my horror, three more eggs had hatched very recently, but had been left behind by the others! One hatchling was clearly dead, and the other two were cold and barely clinging to life. One still had most of its shell and yolk sac attached, and was bleeding quite badly.
I rushed the two live duckings into the house in a towel and held them against my body until our incubator reached the proper temperature. In they went, and remained in critical condition for the next 24 hours. To be continued…
