I haven’t raised any poultry in a long while, it was one of the many extras that had to go while I was working in Seattle. My duck population is low, from attrition and butchering all the males. So I loaded up the incubator with a big batch of eggs.
Meanwhile, the grass grew long in our poultry pen, and I failed to notice a duck hen that had started to set on a batch of eggs. I don’t like them to set, I think it’s a waste of their time. I can hatch eggs with as good, or better rate in the incubator, whereas broody girls suspend laying for weeks or months while they raise a tiny batch of babies. Egg laying breeds are selected for anti-brooding properties, so they aren’t always the best mothers.
But this momma was determined, diving at my calves in aggressive sniper attacks. So I let her have her nest. Then I noticed two more ducks with sneaked broods. Grr. I let them go too. But they all gave up in a panic when their eggs started hatching, leaving babies exposed for the crows to grab. Soon their eggs were pillaged too. I gathered up the remaining eggs, wondering if they had gotten too chilled while the irresponsible mothers yakked up a storm near the water trough.
I considered putting them in the incubator, as those eggs are due to hatch any day now as well. But then I thought about Ms. Chicken, who has been insisting on being broody in the hen house, despite my robbing her eggs each day. She is so broody, even when I pick her up and set her back outside, she squats down and spreads her wing feathers right where she’s plopped. She’s just in the mood to set and set. So I stuck the duck eggs under her, hoping she can finish them out, and maybe satisfy her obsession with having babies.
She carefully tucked them under herself and got them all organized the way she wanted them. This morning, I found this little guy underneath her, peeping away at his adoptive and very responsible mama. Don’t tell them the truth, that they’re not related! They don’t seem to know!
August 19, 2012 at 8:53 am
Why do ducks panic when they start to hatch? One of mine killed all the yellow ducklings but let the black ones live. My hens often hatch off the duck eggs (so much more reliable) but get very upset and chide their “chicks” when they dive into puddles and eventually into the pond.
August 19, 2012 at 2:56 pm
Ahhh, this is very sweet! I can remember my grandmother’s approach to broody hens: she’d put them in “the broody box” until they got tired of being stuck in a little space.
August 19, 2012 at 2:59 pm
Virginia, LOL, I don’t think this girl would mind, she’s staying in the nest box 24/7 all by choice already! Nutty!
August 19, 2012 at 3:01 pm
Anne, I don’t know, I’ve had ducks successfully hatch broods before. But these ladies were definitely calling out as if there were some danger or emergency. And maybe there was, but I’d still expect them to guard their nests, not run off in a panic!
August 19, 2012 at 4:11 pm
Cf…certainly no ugly ducking there! I thought ducklings exercised their precociality by heading straight for the water??? I’ll bet its siblings would raise their eyebrows (do chickens have eyebrows?) had you slipped an emu’s egg under Biddy! I’ve heard of people using their armpits as incubators…or is that apocryphal? TMJ
August 19, 2012 at 8:13 pm
Grandma Cogan used to put goose eggs under broody chicken hens as she had plenty of those surrogate moms. And yes, the hens would squawk and carry on when thier odd looking babies crawled in the water trough. The goslings were also quite large and would lift the momma up as she tried to keep them warm. Funny! History repeating itself!
Mom
August 19, 2012 at 11:29 pm
My dad would stand brooch hens in a tub with a few inches of water in it and then put a cage over them so they had to stand in the water overnight, every time they tried to sit down they did not like getting wet so they learned to stand up. Worked every time.
August 20, 2012 at 4:26 am
“…while the irresponsible mothers yakked up a storm near the water trough.” Haha! You are a great story teller Michelle!
August 20, 2012 at 4:14 pm
Ellie, that gives a great visual, I can imagine how annoyed the hens must have been with that situation! LOL! The hard-wired behavior chain is so interesting, that it takes such drastic measures to break them out of it!
August 20, 2012 at 4:18 pm
TMJ, yes, I can imagine that left with the mother chicken, when the ducklings start to swim, she’d be chastising them! I am going to raise them in a brooder once they are done hatching, though, so she can hopefully get back to laying.
I dunno about incubating eggs in armpits, we are a bit cool- they’re supposed to be kept at 99-102 degrees, depending on species and incubator type.
August 21, 2012 at 1:20 am
CF, it seems to me there ought to be some practical purpose for an armpit–and navels, too–for that matter. I pondered trying the underarm method the next time I had a low-grade fever that lasted three weeks, but I’ve been in the poultry business twice before: once as a kid when a banty hen and rooster mysteriously showed up in a pear tree (yes, a pear tree–you didn’t misread). At night a ranchhand laddered them down for me and I was instantly a chicken rancher. More bantys followed, but the hens had a tendency to disappear into the bushes and tend their clutches of eggs in the wilderness–talk about going on an egg hunt before you could have your omelet! I did build a chicken coop and was able to fill a carton of eggs every once in a while, but when I decided to diversify into the strawberry business, I found the two enterprises extremely incompatible. An ineptness at neck wringing led to employing the shotgun, and my chicken biz ended with a bang.
My chicken reprise happened when my daughter was five or six years old. By some diabolical serendipity, we ended up with a rogue rooster. The succeeding chapters of that relationship read like something out of a Stephen King novel.
By the way, how do you prevent a sharp-shinned from snatching up one of your flock? Looks to me like they’re sitting ducks out there….TMJ
August 21, 2012 at 2:50 am
TMJ- we do have hawks hanging around, every now and then I’ll hear a big ruckus of fussing out there and see a big bird sitting on top of the bird houses. The hawks never seem to get them though (at least in numbers that I can easily count). Our chickens really make a kerfuffle when they are mad, especially the rooster, even our dogs and cat are a little afraid of them. So maybe the hawk just can’t muster up the courage to really do one in. They are like a big gang.
We do have some naughty ravens and crows that are hip to stealing duck eggs though. They like the ones laying around in the perimeter, they’ll poke a hole in them, spear them, and carry them off. It’s really funny to watch if there is a white egg sitting somewhere near where the chickens are hanging out. The black birds will try for hours to get it, and the chickens just keep running them off.