We got a good look at Coraline’s ducklings this morning, and they are cute as can be. One of the quick photos we snapped before she got too huffy showed eight little ones. We also thought we spied one unhatched egg, which is still within the “normal” hatching timeframe – actually, it could conceivably even hatch within the next few days.
Coraline and the ducklings drank some water (we put a small chicken “fountain” waterer in there, too small for any of the ducklings to accidentally fall in), ate some food, and mom even took a couple of bites of the slightly out-of-control vegetation growing in the duck enclosure; we noticed that when she went for the greens, she positioned herself in front of the ducklings on the coop ramp so they couldn’t come out. They’ll be chowing down on greens and bugs in no time, too. Continue reading “Duckling Update #1”
Yesterday was the 20th day of incubation for the Muscovy eggs in our incubator. We’ve been turning them 3 times a day by hand (even though the incubator has an autoturner), manually cooling once a day (even though the machine has an autocooling feature customizable for waterfowl), and misting with water daily. Are you wondering why we would choose the manual route when the incubator could do everything except the misting for us?
Incubated eggs: batch #3 hatching is complete, with just one late hatcher left in the incubator. The chick in the photo was an unassisted hatch, but we noticed that one leg splayed out a bit, so we taped his/her legs together with a piece of bandage to help the leg straighten out. The late hatcher clearly needed some assistance, but we wanted to provide every opportunity for the chick to emerge on his or her own. When we did intervene, we began by partly opening the egg (last night) to see if s/he could kick out; when we checked this morning, s/he was still in the same position in the partial shell. 
