We had ducklings hatch today! One very exhausted - advice appreciated! :)

[Lacrystol]

Oh Jen 1979 I am so sorry. And believe me I know exactly how you are feeling. Almost 2 yrs ago this May My duck hatched 4 ducklings and when they were almost 1 week old one drowned in the small container I had set up for them to play in. I was devastated and still am that I could have let something like that happen. I tried so hard to revive it rubbing it and blow drying it but it was gone. So I know exactly how you are feeling. Things happen even when we do everything to keep them safe. It doesn't make it any better but please know I care and share in your sorrow.

OMG, I have tried to give a duck mouth to mouth to try and revive one. I did it on a chicken and believe it or not IT WORKED. LOL Crazy things we do to try and correct our errors...

 

[Lacrystol]

Thank you, I'm so glad I took your advice and have kept mum and ducklings separate from the others after we lost the first one on the first day, even with all their complaining. I'm not going to let them run together until this baby is at least 4 weeks and even then I'll probably be paranoid supervising them for a few weeks after that!

Anyone that thinks animals don't show grief should see what I'm looking at now. Coco (the mum) is in the enclosure with her remaining baby making a sad quacking noise and Princess (the mumma who's eggs went bad) is sitting right outside answering every quack with a sad little noise of her own. For the last few days Princess has just been free ranging with the others, but now she won't budge. It's like she's consoling her.

Awee that's terrible, your making me cry. STOP THAT, I'm not one to cry.....

 

[Lacrystol]

10 days, he's almost there, I usually let my ducks out when they turn 3 weeks except during the cold months.

I had to bring to of my older babies in they are about 4 weeks, they still had some baby feathers on there head, well what they were doing was dipping there beaks in the water and splashing it every where, that water would get on there heads and sure enough there heads had ICICLES.

Usually my calls wont let me touch them, well these two babies were GLAD to have me hold them. So inside they went, they are in my room now and BOY I can't wait for this weather to break, they do NOT smell very pleasant. .

I'm afraid to put them back outside right now even though they no longer have those baby feathers because I'm afraid they will go into shock. I had a rabbit do that once, go outside in the snow, then want to come in he went right by the heater and sure enough went into shock and had a heartattack and died, so Im afraid if I send these guys out now that the same thing will happen to them...

 

[Jen1979]

Thankyou @Lacrystol you have all made me feel so much better now. Still sad, but feeling more like I've learned some lessons and will know better forever more. I LOVE that you gave a chicken mouth to mouth! I would do the same if I thought it would help! (Now I know that there's a chance it will, I'll have to try it if I'm ever in that position!)

So you think 3 weeks will be ok? I'll supervise them with the other ducks when the time comes for a while to make sure no-one's picking on anyone else...and at least the chickens are in a separate area so it's just the other 3 ducks that will be meeting the little one.

At least we definitely don't have the problem of being too cold here at the moment! It is ridiculously hot instead! That's incredible about the icicles on their heads! I bet they were more than happy to come inside

Oh yes, the risk of shock with an extreme temperature change is real isn't it, I really hope you get a break in the weather soon! We're quite lucky here, the Summer is the time of worry for us - the soaring temps up to 113 degrees F mean people lose their chickens and ducks easily to heat stroke, but we've tried hard to be set up as well as can be for that. The Winter time rarely gets below 50 F in the day and even 35 F at night so we don't have too much to fear from freezing.

I am going to try and get some new photos of our baby this afternoon, she's looking like a little supermodel with gangly legs all the way up to her wings right now

 

[Miss Lydia]

Thankyou @Lacrystol you have all made me feel so much better now. Still sad, but feeling more like I've learned some lessons and will know better forever more. I LOVE that you gave a chicken mouth to mouth! I would do the same if I thought it would help! (Now I know that there's a chance it will, I'll have to try it if I'm ever in that position!)

So you think 3 weeks will be ok? I'll supervise them with the other ducks when the time comes for a while to make sure no-one's picking on anyone else...and at least the chickens are in a separate area so it's just the other 3 ducks that will be meeting the little one.

At least we definitely don't have the problem of being too cold here at the moment! It is ridiculously hot instead! That's incredible about the icicles on their heads! I bet they were more than happy to come inside

Oh yes, the risk of shock with an extreme temperature change is real isn't it, I really hope you get a break in the weather soon! We're quite lucky here, the Summer is the time of worry for us - the soaring temps up to 113 degrees F mean people lose their chickens and ducks easily to heat stroke, but we've tried hard to be set up as well as can be for that. The Winter time rarely gets below 50 F in the day and even 35 F at night so we don't have too much to fear from freezing.

I am going to try and get some new photos of our baby this afternoon, she's looking like a little supermodel with gangly legs all the way up to her wings right now

Look forward to the pics, and do you plan to keep this one? I know at one time you talked of a friend who was going to get them.

 

[Jen1979]

Look forward to the pics, and do you plan to keep this one? I know at one time you talked of a friend who was going to get them.

We will definitely be keeping this one. We planned to rehome them if we had quite a few but decided if there weren't many we would keep them, so this baby stays with the flock

Well, the little cutie refused to be a supermodel for me this afternoon (which was probably just as well because my camera battery was flat!) could only get a couple of phone pics so far. This is one of her with her most favourite thing in the world....mud

 

[Orca5094]

Dying of cute!! ^-^

 

[Miss Lydia]

We will definitely be keeping this one. We planned to rehome them if we had quite a few but decided if there weren't many we would keep them, so this baby stays with the flock

Well, the little cutie refused to be a supermodel for me this afternoon (which was probably just as well because my camera battery was flat!) could only get a couple of phone pics so far. This is one of her with her most favourite thing in the world....mud

That is so precious.

 

[Jen1979]

Last night we had a huge storm, the thunder was like nothing I'd ever heard! Rain belting down and even hail! Right in the middle of Summer. So at 3am I was sitting out in the duck enclosure with a torch making sure that little baby was not getting wet or too scared! Luckily she was just fine. Phew. (Although when I came back inside one of the dogs was under my pillow - my 40kg dog...he was not happy at all!)

 

[Miss Lydia]

Last night we had a huge storm, the thunder was like nothing I'd ever heard! Rain belting down and even hail! Right in the middle of Summer. So at 3am I was sitting out in the duck enclosure with a torch making sure that little baby was not getting wet or too scared! Luckily she was just fine. Phew. (Although when I came back inside one of the dogs was under my pillow - my 40kg dog...he was not happy at all!)

Baby had mum to keep her safe, your dog needed mum to keep him safe.