Saint Patrick's day hatch-a-long EGGS ARE HERE!

[gimmie birdies]

#24 the 15th egg to hatch last night. And this morning.

still waiting on the last egg. Below. (#16, to hatch, but 4 is the group name. Goldie.)The top inner cover was white and hard, I dampen it with warm water, peeled it back, but still veins at bottom of egg. So the chick would not come out of egg too soon, I put it in a resting cup, to keep it up right.

not going to rush it.
Day 22.
All hatched babies got a sip
Of watered down meat flavored baby food.

 

[gimmie birdies]

This wet chich is the last one. 16th to hatch. Goldie.

 

[gimmie birdies]

16 hatched, and they are with the 3 from last week. 19 chicks are great.

 

[Slothinc]

Lady Spot is a wild mallard mix with Swedish blue in her that flew in a few months ago. My guys had started nesting in their run but never went broody so I was using it as an easy way to collect some of their eggs. Then Lady Spot found the nest and started laying in it and for a few days I was watching it before rotating out some of the older eggs and in the process mistakenly got 2 of her eggs. About the same time I found my double yolker and threw it and the eggs in the incubator that I hadn't put in the fridge since we had about 18 at the time. Spot spent a few days trying to chase Lady Spot off their nest but eventually he gave up and started ignoring her.

The timing worked out great and back on day like... 5 after she got chased off I grabbed 3 of the eggs and took them inside to candle real quick and saw they were looking to be about the same as mine before quickly putting them back out there for her before she returned. I'm glad that of her 5 babies she ahs with her only 1 is a runner, the goal wasn't to replace her normal ducklings with runners but once she took over the nest I was letting stay at like 8-9 eggs it was probably going to happen either way. I can also add in at least yesterday morning her mallard drake boyfriend that's been hanging around off to the side when she's on the nest and had tried to defend her from the mallard drake gang a few times finally got to reconnect with her and they were laying together with the babies which was cute to see!
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(Look at Lady Spot’s legs in this picture of the family lol. They look so out of place I can’t stop laughing)

Awwww thank you for sharing, that is just so cool!! So will the little runner baby become a “wild duck” since it’s being raised by wild parents? I guess I don’t know enough about ducks to know the logistics of wild vs domestic. It is so much fun that you can have little ducklings growing up outside too! We used to have a pond behind our house and I loved watching all the baby ducks and Canada geese every spring!!

That picture of Lady Spot is absolutely hilarious

 

[Slothinc]

This wet chich is the last one. 16th to hatch. Goldie.
View attachment 4075783

Good job Goldie!!! The chicks are all absolutely adorable!!

 

[gimmie birdies]

Last 2 still drying off.

below are random brooder shots.