Vindicated By a Duck

In a prior post I mentioned that I gave 2 pre-K classes 20 chicken eggs and none of them hatched. We were so sure that the rooster, Big Foot, was not up to the job.

I knew it wasn't my fault.  And you don't know why I'm hostile.

  Then I gave them 11 of the 16 eggs that my duck, Daisy, laid.  I left 5 of the eggs in the nest.  But I had marked the 1st 4 that she laid with a big black X, because Daisy had not been sittling on them and they sat out in the freezing weather.  Then after more than 2 weeks she decided to sit on them.  I had collected the new eggs each day and saved them for the class. That was why I marked the 1st 4 with the X. 

 I felt so sorry for Daisy sitting for 28 days, barely getting up to eat, drink and take a quick swim once a day.  So on April 5th, when my grandson, Connor, yelled I see baby ducks;  I thought surely only the last egg had hatched.  So I said, "You see one duck?"  He replied, "No, there are 4."  Sure enough the 4 that I had marked with that X had all hatched; leaving just the newest egg unhatched.

I quickly texted the teacher to ask if her eggs had hatched.  None of hers ended up hatching.  So it appears Big Foot most likely does not shoot blanks.  I'm sure he is thankful to Donald for clearing his reputation.  It's still a mystery what went wrong with all those eggs at the school.  One theory is that the heating unit in the building is cut off at 3 pm each day; but I don't know if that really affected them.

Donald takes his job as protector very seriously. 

We are just happy that it is truly spring at our mini urban farm with baby chicks, baby goats and now 4 baby ducks.  Oh, and as for the 5th egg; Daisy had to move on with the 4 that had hatched.  Chase, my 12 year old grandson, understood what had happened and begged me to do something so it could hatch.  I had to tell him that I am not a mother duck and I don't have an incubator. It was just one of those tough lessons one learns quickly when raising farm animals, even as pets.

Adorable family of 6

Nothing beats a good spring rain.

Ducks

Last spring I bought 2 ducklings.  I wanted a male and a female, so I googled to find out all I could about how to sex a duckling.  What I read was that the female would be noisy; always quacking.  The male would be quiet, but moving around a lot.  So off to the Tractor Supply Store.  All they had were Peking and that was fine.  So as I observed them, I did notice the 2 very different types of behaviors.  I got one completely yellow one that was making a lot of noise; therefore a presumed female and one black and yellow one that was quietly running all over the place; my presumed male.  Without a lot of thought, I named them Daisy and Donald. 

About four months or so later my designation of each one's gender was confirmed by their behavior in their little pool.

This year Daisy is sitting on 5 eggs.  I had read that Peking ducks don't go broody, so I marked the first 4 eggs in her nest and began collecting the new one each day to dye for Easter.  I also gave 11 eggs to the Pre-K teacher to see if they would hatch.  Daisy laid one final egg and has decided to hatch them.  I don't believe the 4 I marked will hatch because we had several days below freezing and she was not on them.  But for the past 15 days, she rarely moves from her nest.  Let's hope that at least that one egg hatches after all her dedication.   

You can see the x I marked on the eggs.  I do feel guilty about that now.

Daisy looks so sweet taking care of her eggs.

And what is Donald doing while his mate is no longer running around quaking at him all day?  

Mostly he quietly stands guard very close to Daisy.

When I open the door he runs up and attacks me.  It is very painful to be bitten on the ankle by a duck.