Ducklings Everywhere

Finally, we had a duck successfully hatch her nest of eggs. Bluebell ,our "duck in the hole", has twelve little fuzzy ducklings tucked under her. The secret to her success is that she picked an almost impossible spot to get into for the location of her nest. One morning ,I was walking past the pig/goose/duck pen, in a wired off side shoot, there behind chicken wire, staring out at me was Bluebell. That smart lucky duck had gone to the back of the pen, found the blocked off entrance to the side area and dug under the board blocking it. Bluebell had been sneaking in and out for a month laying her eggs and fluffing her nest without us noticing. When the time was right, she settled in for her thirty five day incubation period. That’s the morning I found her staring out at me, in her fenced in fortress, the perfect spot for ducky nesting. I swear she knew she had outsmarted me and all the other ducks. The poor other ducks had chickens, and those darn Guinea hens were dropping eggs right and left under them. They were stressed, always having their nest invaded. We even had one chicken hen decide it was her nest, and took it over. Not smarty feathers Bluebell, she was neatly tucked away down a ten foot hole, on a pile of downy feathers, looking out me. She had it all to herself, not one bird had caught on to what she had done or how she had gotten there. Meanwhile another duck I call Big Mamma adopted 19 ducklings and 1 special needs gosling (Lucy Goosie). These babies were hatched in the brooder and put out in the back of the duck pen under a heat lamp. After two weeks I cut them loose so they could venture out into the yard to graze on grass. This can be a very nerve racking time for me; keeping them safe, making sure that they don't get to close to a big cranky goose or beaten up by a giant turkey. The second day I cut the babies loose, I noticed Big Mamma talking to all the little guys and they were listening to her. Muscovy's have a gentle whispery call that you can barely hear. Big Mamma was gathering up all the babies to watch over them. She started marching around, giving out whispering ducky commands and they all followed her, even poor little special needs Lucy Goosie. If any undesirable bird dares to get to close to her brood Mamma snaped at them with a loud hiss to chase off the dirty bird. Looking out in the backyard, I can see Big Mamma with all 20 of her brood piled around her sleeping, while under her watchful eye. For once I could breath a sigh of relief, this is one less group that I had to watch over endlessly. If you have never experienced a "duck pile" you haven't lived. When it is nap time, the ducklings make little fuzzy piles of yellow, black, brown ducklings, smashing together with little wings, bills and big webbed feet sticking out in every direction. Lucy Goosie is usually the center of the pile since she is the largest baby in the group. My little Lucy Goosie was hatched out from mystery goose eggs given to me from Martin and Hennelore. She is the only one out of eight eggs that hatched. The poor little thing had a horrible struggle the first 3 day of her life. Lucy's left webbed foot was curled when she hatched; all her toes were curled up in a ball instead of a normal flat webbed foot. I have experienced this problem before with ducklings but not to this degree of deformity. Out comes the medical tape, a plastic lid from a Chinese food container and the scissors, time to make a little brace for a tiny webbed foot,I like to call this MacGrubering, for those SNL fans. It took me two attempts to get the fit correct, Lucy peeped in protest the whole time. Do you know how hard it is to take a tiny foot, shaping all the little toes and taping the foot to a tiny piece of plastic the size of a penny? Did I mention the whole time the booth tiny feet are kicking in the air, with Lucy peeping wildly while I'm attempting to tape her little curled foot.Finally I finish Lucy's foot and put her back into the brooder with her little friends. Lucy immediately gets up and clumsily marches around the brooder on her new flat foot. It took her a few tries to get used to the tape and plastic that is holding her toes in a normal position. Now all I can do is wait and see if the foot heals properly. Geese are a very heavy bird, they need both feet to support their weight. After three days, Lucy had bounced back from the ordeal and started to act like a normal three day old gosling; running wild in the brooder, stomping around with her foot brace. On day four of Lucy's life, I decided it was time to check the progress of her little foot; while pealing off the medical tape she protested even louder then before and kicked much harder. She is a nice strong baby now. Honestly I did not expect poor little Lucy Goosie’s foot to turn out as good as it did. Her tiny webbed foot looked almost normal. I put the crazy peeping gosling back down in the brooder with her friends and she started running wild! Every day now when Lucy comes padding up to me with her big feet, one of which is a little deformed I think of how lucky she is. Picking her up and nuzzling the fuzzy gosling fuzz while I still can as she peeps contently, I realize how lucky I am.