When Chance Comes Knocking - Dainty Ducklings Part 1

This is a story about chance.  In my family's future, we wanted to raise egg-laying hens.  Having grown up on a farm, I was up to the task, even if we lived in the city.  It was doable - a handful of egg-laying hens.  My kids were just begging for it to happen.

The chance adventure began when the place I work at came across some wild duck eggs in a dangerous place for eggs to be.  A little fact about wild ducks: the mother duck will only lay one egg a day, leave the nest, go eat in a pond, come back the next day, lay another - and so on until there are 10-12 eggs for her to finally sit on and incubate.  The place was going to toss the two wild duck eggs out of the nest and into the grass to get rid of them before something else did.  They deemed them good as gone if left in the location they were found.  To note, disturbing a wild duck nest is prohibited by law.  It was one of those tough situations of: eggs would die being left there, and eggs would die being pitched out.  Being a wildlife advocate, I thought up a different plan. I brought the two eggs home. I was willing to see if I could hatch them out.  I instantly read up a lot about wild ducks.  I had always wanted ducks, but not wild ducks.  I wanted those cute waddling ones with all the neat feathers.  After the research I thought the task to hatch out the wild eggs was doable.  So began the journey of the ducks.

2 Duck Eggs Rescued 

I poured over information on successfully hatching out wild duck eggs, laws on rescuing wild ducks, and what to do if the eggs were actually fertile and viable.  After a tremendous amount of research, I decided to give the incubation a try.  I had no idea if the eggs were even fertile.  Incubating eggs is not to be taken lightly.  It is a daily task - rotating the eggs carefully multiple times a day, checking temperature, making sure the humidity is perfect.  And even if all is going well in incubation, the eggs may not hatch out.  There are so many factors to a successful hatching.  Having only two of what should have been a clutch of ten to twelve duck eggs, I was thinking my chances of having them hatch out to be impossible.  And there is no better place for wild eggs to be than in the care of their real, wild mother.  But unfortunately, they had to depend on me.

After about 11 days I candled them (candling is when you go into a dark room with a flash light, hold the flash light to the egg, and see the veins and life forming - amazing), and there was life in them.  It was beautiful to see life via candling.  And after a month of tedious and constant care of the eggs in incubation, one of them made it to full hatch.  Duck eggs are notorious for being difficult to hatch out properly.  I was shocked that one hatched at all.  Yes, only one.  The other stopped developing between day 18 and 20.  Both eggs received the same treatment.  It was very sad for one not to make it full term.  But alas, here is the one survivor after 31 days of incubation:

Egg Pipping - meaning the hatchling is on the way. This took 3 days. 

Duckling unzipping the egg shell. Working hard to get out.  Took hours.  

Fresh from the shell, warming up in the incubator. 

Drying off in the heat of incubator.  

To note, I did spend the entire night sleeping next to the incubator to ensure this one duckling made it through the night.  Well, I didn't sleep much actually.  I talked to it, and encouraged it that it wasn't alone.  Lonely ducks are not happy ducks.  They are social animals.

12 hours later. Precious baby.  Life - what a beautiful thing. 

All fluffy and dry.  Alive, warm, well.  Taken from incubator and put into a custom made brooder box with red heat lamp.  

30 hours after hatch.  So tiny, but full of life and spunk.  What a survivor!

I was prepared for the possibility that only one egg would hatch out.  I knew this duck's survival depended on it having a duck family. I had researched domestic ducks to put on order from a great hatchery that combated disease and took excellent care of their stock.  I needed quiet, gentle, good egg-laying ducks.  I ordered the wild duckling four sisters from California - three different breeds - 2 Cayuga, 1 Buff, and 1 Blue Swedish.  The babies were flown via jet to the post office for sorting.  Within 2 days of the domestic ducks hatching in California, our one duckling household turned into a five duckling household.  And our wild duck was so happy to have the company.

The four sisters fresh from the post office.  Getting love from the kids.  I kept the 4 domestic ducks away from the wild duck for a day.  I needed to make sure the ducks were not sick.  Wild ducks are incredibly susceptible to diseases from domestic ducks.  I was hoping this accredited hatchery lived up to its standards of combating avian disease.  They were super healthy. 

Sisters for the wild duckling.  The wild duck was very curious.  Our new adventure in having backyard ducks begins. 

They took to each other immediately. 

"Let's grow up together."  

So the babies arrived one week after our wild one was hatched.  They all got along famously.  But ducklings grow fast.  So we needed to get a move on their outdoor coop and enclosure.  I also had to be careful to not handle the wild duck much as a wild duck needs to return to the wild.