What on earth!?

[AnconaDuck]

My younger brother raises Silver Appleyards. This year he set some SA eggs under some white appleyards (his pets! LOL) to incubate. Things seemed great- mom had 6 eggs all developing under her. 2 weeks ago, only 5 eggs.

I first though snake, since the egg just dissapeared. No big deal, still had 5 developing eggs. Last week, when they started pipping, one egg dissapears.

So now, 4 pipping eggs. 3 eggs sucessfully hatch, but the morning that the other hatched, the other pipped egg just disappeared. No duckling, no egg, NOTHING

What on earth!? Well, today the two day old ducklings were out with mom. She has been a little rough on them, nothing more than moms normally are with their babies, though. But, as the babies are just minding their own business, mom comes up, grabs one of them by the head and starts to swallow it

I jump into the pen and grab the duckling out of her mouth and watch what mom does. She walks around, then 30 seconds later she tries it again to another baby.

I have taken the babies from here. I now assume she ate her eggs/ducklings.

I have never seen a mom do this before! Is there an explanation? reason? Anyone else seen this before? Or this something normal that I have been spoiled not to see before? Thankfully we had a batch of SA ducklings from the incubator. they have kindly welcomed these babies. But seriously, what on earth!?

 

[jsvand5]

Wow that is odd! Is her diet maybe lacking something and she is looking for the extra nutrients? I have no idea what to tell you, but if it were me, it would be about time for that duck to become dinner.

 

[keeperofthehearth]

I haven't seen that before or heard of it! Well, I guess you might not want to use her as a broody again. I would hope she wouldn't do that to another broodies ducklings. hmmmmm.... Very curious and disturbing.

 

[duckluck]

Wow, I've never heard of that! I know my ducks have eaten a couple of eggs, but only after they have been trampled and broken open. That's just crazy!

 

[Bleenie]

WOW, I'm gonna have a nightmare tonight. That's just downright creepy, freaky & scary!

 

[sevenchickens]

Has anyone ever heard the saying, 'Alligators are the most intelligent mothers, they eat their young.' Now we can add Geese to the list of intelligent mothers.

 

[Bleenie]

I was thinking about it and how could she even possibly digest a whole baby duck???? this whole subject just creeps me out and i really hope you guys can figure out whats wrong or if not, rehome her to somewhere she wont be having any or even being around any babies!

i could use her to fix my rat problem

 

[AnconaDuck]

Well that's just it- we wondered how on earth she could swallow a whole duckling!! It is very alarming, and I am just so thankful we caught her before she digested the remaining two ducklings.

We are currently in contact with some biologists from MSU to see if they have studied this behavior at all. Now we are curious to see if mother's do this for a reason, or if for some reason we have a mutant mother with a taste for whole duckling.

It is just odd. Ill let everyone know what I find out. We'll see if that duck even keeps herself off the dinner table. I just cannot understand it at ALL!