On May 1st I brought home Muscovy ducks. Ducks are new for me, and I am learning about them as they settle in. About 2 weeks after they arrived, the hen, (the bird in the foreground in this photo) began entering the chicken coop first thing every morning and laying an egg behind the food bin. After 10 or so days she then began going in the coop at night and setting on the eggs. Now, from what I understand, what she SHOULD have been doing was just settling on the nest and pretty much staying put until some ducklings hatched. She reminded me of a teen aged mother, though... quite dedicated part of the time but out hanging with her friends by the pool the rest of the time! I WISHED she would get on the nest and stay put so we could have babies. I wished it a lot. Yesterday and today I have found variations on the above theme. Two broody* chickens AND the duck all on the nest! There are now 21 eggs and three mothers. If anything does hatch it will be a very confused little bird. (*A broody chicken- or duck is one that is hormonally driven to sit on a nest for almost all of the day. They get off only once or twice to eat, drink and eliminate.)
2 comments:
Daryl -- be prepared for some very upset hens when "their" baby ducklings think nothing of splish-splashing around in tupbs of water! Pretty funny - the hens run around the water container just having fits over their aberrant children's affinity for water.
Be careful what you wish for is right on !!! When we had t6he out of control duck population, they were muscovies !! Let the hawks & the foxes do their thing or you will have more than you can imagine !!!!
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