Call ducklings - in November!

[johnwesleybarke]

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10158936263360127

 

[sourland]

I think you did the right thing. In my experience mothering skills are an inherited trait.

 

[johnwesleybarke]

I think you did the right thing. In my experience mothering skills are an inherited trait.

Thanks for that reassurance. The morning of the hatching, I wrote, "Well, not a phantom brood after-all. Defying all the odds 'Zoomy' has begun to hatch her clutch. We managed to take one quick photo as 4 have hatched and we're leaving her to hatch the rest.
Hatching ducklings in Autumn!? I ask you. The hen was nearby, she's called Zoomy because the morning she hatched in April I had just revived her, (yes, she's 7 months old herself) and shared her remarkable return to life with friends via a Zoom call. I found her upside down outside in our duck pen and looking entirely lifeless. I rushed in the house, put on the heat lamp and warmed her with my breath in my hands and also gave her CPR. Filled her lungs through her beak, and pumped her heart with my thumbs. After 40 minutes, she came back to life. Now, here she is today, hatching her own ducklings."

The rest of the story the morning I found her on the pen floor, her mother hen, was till on her clutch trying to hatch the remaining eggs. Her choice of nesting site was awful, it was a disused rabbit hutch and many other ducks and chickens would come and go in the early weeks of her brooding. We then secured the rabbit hutch as best we could. When I was reviving Zoomy, the mother hen sat deteminadly on the clutch but none of the other eggs hatched. She was in competition with her sibling too and she had had 8 ducklings. I returned Zoomy to her mother the next day and their relationship was somewhat distant although we did give them a warm and dry secure nest for the first few weeks they didn't bond as strongly as our other hens. We have two hens, 'A.P.' and 'Apple' who are amazing mothers, all of their offspring have also been amazing mothers. 3 years ago A.P. and Apple shared a brood, laying a mutual clutch and raising the 14 ducklings together.

I'm glad to say that as I write the 7 one day old ducklings are doing really well under the heat lamp. Keen on their crumb and water and nice and warm. They had a quick dip as well. They're all chirpy now and preening and drying. I'm glad to say we've found a home for them now too.