Hello!
My 12 first Indian Runner ducklings of this year are born between May 5th and May 7th...!
...Was a stressful experience, because for one : they were late.
I had put their eggs on a broody Brahma hen on April 5th, and since last year, the ducklings were born at Day-25 or Day-26, I had here been afraid since Day-26 the eggs were actually dead...
Thanks God, it was not the case!
Nevertheless, this year's first hatchs were also stressful for another thing : the hen who hatched 10 of them had abadonned the remaining 6 eggs the next day (being May 6th); and so, I had eggs with at least two babies ready to be born (one already externally pipped!), but no more mama sitting on them!
I did not think the eggs could still hatch without warmth, and I don't have an incubator to help; but thankfully, I had other broody hens, including one Appenzeller I still did not have given eggs to sit on...!
So : I put the remaining 6 eggs underneath this Appenzeller, and God did I hope I did good by doing so, and it was not too late for the babies...! (I was panicked!)
During the wait for these remaining eggs to hatch, I was monitoring my Brahma hen and the ducklings - just to see if all was good.
Good thing I did, because in the morning, I actually had counted only 9 ducklings, although they should have be numbered to 10, since I had put 16 eggs underneath the mama, and 6 eggs remaining should have meant 10 ducklings of course...!
...And find the missing duckling did I eventually do : the poor baby was crying alone in a part of the run, because it was so frigid it could not move anymore.
What happened is easy to guess : this duckling is probably the last of the ten babies to hatch (it was the smallest, more curled up on itself), and when the mama got out of the coop to raise them, this one was still not ready to walk long enough to follow its mama in order to keep sufficiently close to her to warm up in her feathers...
Resulting in a newborn duckling crying and dying from cold...
Thanks the Lord I found it in time to save it, and weather was actually so cold I kept using my wood stove to warm up my house... because I eventually warmed up the duckling directly in front of this wood stove.
And it worked, and I could quickly put it back with its mama... (And it had had no more problem since then...!)
But then, next to that?
Still on May 6th : the duckling that externally pipped its eggs finally got out of its eggs underneath the other broody hen.
Only thing I could say was weird was the fact I found a long and slim brown, humid, goo inside of the egg... I don't know what it is, and it is the first time I found something like that inside of a hatched egg...?
...The duckling was fine, so in the evening, once my Brahma hen and her babies were resting inside of their coop, I just put it underneath her...
And the next morning (May 7th), I did the same with the second egg that hatched underneath my broddy Appenzeller : I found a duckling underneath my hen, and since it was alreday dried, I put it with the Brahma mama.
(Just to say : its egg had the same brown goo than the other one!)
Thus, my Brahma hen has now 12 ducklings to raise (instead of 9)!
(But, to be precise : just a bit later in the morning on May 7th, I still had to get the two last born ducklings in my home, in order to warm them up in front of my wood stove - like the 10th born needed to : even though I had put them underneath the Brahma hen and she accepted them... they were not strong enough to follow her outside of the coop. So, I prefered to warm them up inside of my home, because I was afraid they would die from cold if I let them alone...)
Here is a picture of the ducklings I took on May 7th :
And one picture I took today :
(They grow so fast...!)
There are :
- 1 White (with leakages on feathers),
- 4 Trout (probably faulted),
- 7 Light Dusky.
I actually choose a greater number of eggs from my Light Dusky ducks to hatch because one of the drake I put with two of my Light Dusky ducks to mate with is a Black Bibbed one, and I was hoping crossing a Black Bibbed drake with a Light Dusky duck would remove the bib of the ducklings, or at least make Dark Dusky ducklings...
But for now, I am not lucky...
(Are the Light Dusky genes dominant or something...?!!)
Also, my only white duckling have some grey leakages on its feathers - on the back and above the tail :
I think these feathers will be blue or lavender...?
Father is a solid white; but I remember last year, when one of his son grew up to have some grey/lavender feather on his back, just underneath his wings - but then only on his adult plumage : he actually was solid yellow when duckling.
I don't know if leakages are somewhat a fault accentuated by genetics from a parent, but if ever it is the case, I could hope to have more ducklings like that (white with leakages), then breed them with solid coloured ducks to make spotted runner ducks in the future...?
I'm excited.
I'm also excited to see the meet my next ducklings (the next ones will be born soon).
...This first experience of 2024 was the worst of all my hatching experiences so far - because it was so stressful, and I did not know if I could save the ducklings I helped... and the wait was so hard...
I was actually ready to give up any hope to see these ducklings alive, so much late they were... (Especially compared with last year's hatchings!)
I at least have learned my lessons :
- 1 - do not give up on eggs you want to hatch, even if the babies are late to pip;
- 2 - monitor closely the mama and the babies, because babies (and eggs) can still need human help, even when the broody hen seem to be (like) a good mother.
My 12 first Indian Runner ducklings of this year are born between May 5th and May 7th...!
...Was a stressful experience, because for one : they were late.
I had put their eggs on a broody Brahma hen on April 5th, and since last year, the ducklings were born at Day-25 or Day-26, I had here been afraid since Day-26 the eggs were actually dead...
Thanks God, it was not the case!
Nevertheless, this year's first hatchs were also stressful for another thing : the hen who hatched 10 of them had abadonned the remaining 6 eggs the next day (being May 6th); and so, I had eggs with at least two babies ready to be born (one already externally pipped!), but no more mama sitting on them!
I did not think the eggs could still hatch without warmth, and I don't have an incubator to help; but thankfully, I had other broody hens, including one Appenzeller I still did not have given eggs to sit on...!
So : I put the remaining 6 eggs underneath this Appenzeller, and God did I hope I did good by doing so, and it was not too late for the babies...! (I was panicked!)
During the wait for these remaining eggs to hatch, I was monitoring my Brahma hen and the ducklings - just to see if all was good.
Good thing I did, because in the morning, I actually had counted only 9 ducklings, although they should have be numbered to 10, since I had put 16 eggs underneath the mama, and 6 eggs remaining should have meant 10 ducklings of course...!
...And find the missing duckling did I eventually do : the poor baby was crying alone in a part of the run, because it was so frigid it could not move anymore.
What happened is easy to guess : this duckling is probably the last of the ten babies to hatch (it was the smallest, more curled up on itself), and when the mama got out of the coop to raise them, this one was still not ready to walk long enough to follow its mama in order to keep sufficiently close to her to warm up in her feathers...
Resulting in a newborn duckling crying and dying from cold...
Thanks the Lord I found it in time to save it, and weather was actually so cold I kept using my wood stove to warm up my house... because I eventually warmed up the duckling directly in front of this wood stove.
And it worked, and I could quickly put it back with its mama... (And it had had no more problem since then...!)
But then, next to that?
Still on May 6th : the duckling that externally pipped its eggs finally got out of its eggs underneath the other broody hen.
Only thing I could say was weird was the fact I found a long and slim brown, humid, goo inside of the egg... I don't know what it is, and it is the first time I found something like that inside of a hatched egg...?
...The duckling was fine, so in the evening, once my Brahma hen and her babies were resting inside of their coop, I just put it underneath her...
And the next morning (May 7th), I did the same with the second egg that hatched underneath my broddy Appenzeller : I found a duckling underneath my hen, and since it was alreday dried, I put it with the Brahma mama.
(Just to say : its egg had the same brown goo than the other one!)
Thus, my Brahma hen has now 12 ducklings to raise (instead of 9)!
(But, to be precise : just a bit later in the morning on May 7th, I still had to get the two last born ducklings in my home, in order to warm them up in front of my wood stove - like the 10th born needed to : even though I had put them underneath the Brahma hen and she accepted them... they were not strong enough to follow her outside of the coop. So, I prefered to warm them up inside of my home, because I was afraid they would die from cold if I let them alone...)
Here is a picture of the ducklings I took on May 7th :
And one picture I took today :
(They grow so fast...!)
There are :
- 1 White (with leakages on feathers),
- 4 Trout (probably faulted),
- 7 Light Dusky.
I actually choose a greater number of eggs from my Light Dusky ducks to hatch because one of the drake I put with two of my Light Dusky ducks to mate with is a Black Bibbed one, and I was hoping crossing a Black Bibbed drake with a Light Dusky duck would remove the bib of the ducklings, or at least make Dark Dusky ducklings...
But for now, I am not lucky...
(Are the Light Dusky genes dominant or something...?!!)
Also, my only white duckling have some grey leakages on its feathers - on the back and above the tail :
I think these feathers will be blue or lavender...?
Father is a solid white; but I remember last year, when one of his son grew up to have some grey/lavender feather on his back, just underneath his wings - but then only on his adult plumage : he actually was solid yellow when duckling.
I don't know if leakages are somewhat a fault accentuated by genetics from a parent, but if ever it is the case, I could hope to have more ducklings like that (white with leakages), then breed them with solid coloured ducks to make spotted runner ducks in the future...?
I'm excited.
I'm also excited to see the meet my next ducklings (the next ones will be born soon).
...This first experience of 2024 was the worst of all my hatching experiences so far - because it was so stressful, and I did not know if I could save the ducklings I helped... and the wait was so hard...
I was actually ready to give up any hope to see these ducklings alive, so much late they were... (Especially compared with last year's hatchings!)
I at least have learned my lessons :
- 1 - do not give up on eggs you want to hatch, even if the babies are late to pip;
- 2 - monitor closely the mama and the babies, because babies (and eggs) can still need human help, even when the broody hen seem to be (like) a good mother.
