Petunia Goose has taken over a duck nest as her own and is sitting on it most of the time now. I'm not even sure how many of the eggs in there are hers, to be honest, or how many are actually viable. I guess we'll see. Bruiser, her mate, is getting quite protective and aggressive now, which is a bit of an issue, but it's also normal, expected behavior. She seems find with Gracie's ducklings sleeping near her, though, and some duck has been building a new nest by her, not sure who yet, until they start setting.
Jack, our Sebastopol gander, has taken to standing on whatever makes him taller, from the pile of compost I had been using to fill in spots to the potato bags. Robert ended up putting a fence around the potato bags to make him stop breaking off potato shoots and standing on the darn things. At least he and Bruiser are good friends now and not fighting like they were when we still had Pete and Mary. Word is, they're super happy in their new flock, being the only geese, and have even stopped hissing at their new goose mom. Khaki Mama and Mango have been trying to make hidden nests outside. This is a problem, as you can imagine, as we have predators. I swear, everything eats ducks, so we always lock our birds up at night in the barn and encourage them to nest there. Still no sign of Pigeon, and I am really starting to worry that something bad has happened to her and not that she's just on a hidden nest somewhere. The babies are growing quickly, and Buddy last night (the bigger, spotted one, likely a drake) came running when Robert, Alex, and I started spreading compost on one of the back garden beds. Maybe he thought is was food? Either way, it was adorable, and the babies are very calm and comfy being around us and the rest of the flock. As much as Gracie seems done with them, everyone else seems to be keeping an eye on them and keeping them safe, which is the best we could hope for.
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They're bigger than this now, but they're doing pretty well. They're growing, running around, eating quite a bit, and bothering everyone unless they're sleeping in a pile. Their mom, Gracie, started out as a good mom, but lately, she seems to have decided she's done with them, far earlier than her clutch last year, and so they're having to pretty much take care of each other, though the other ducks seem to be a bit protective and helpful.
Raven is still on her nest, though I could have sworn she should have hatched some by now. No signs yet there. Pigeon has also disappeared, we think to sit on a nest because she started sounding broody, but we cannot find her or her nest anywhere. Since she's a favorite of mine, I really hope she's okay. We're both hoping it will be a situation of a duck just showing up with her brand new ducklings a month later. We have several eggs in the incubator and are hopeful some of them will hatch in another two weeks or so. Since it's our first time doing this, we aren't sure we're doing it right or that it will work at all. We have 11 duck eggs and 8 goose eggs in there, and any of them hatching is better than nothing. Speaking of geese, Petunia is finally starting to want to sit on a nest--and it isn't hers. Seriously, she's stolen a duck nest and now lays eggs in it (way later than we thought a goose would) and seems to want to start setting, though she isn't quite to that point yet. She probably just needs a few more eggs in it first like ducks do. I'm just saying... *sighs*
When Robert got home tonight, Petunia Goose was in nest 3, tail sticking out from under the quarter barrel enclosure, the one with many eggs and no one on it all day (no idea who's been taking care of it and covering eggs up at night). Happy mama goose noises, but that's not her nest. Not her side of the barn. So, I cleaned out the goose side (it was wetter than I'd realized and needed a clean out), and I found only one goose egg. I also found two muscovy eggs. *sighs again* So weird. Anyway, I got it all set up just like nest 3 that she seemed to like, so we'll see if she accepts that and makes it her nest or not. No idea if we will get any goslings this year at all because of her trying to make nests outside and now in the duck side and who knows where. While I was messing with it all, I realized Squeaker Mama and Khaki Mama were off their shared nest. Again. That was odd, since they usually take turns. So, I looked in, and there were only three eggs. Three. They'd had over a dozen in there, and we've even given them eggs lately. I had Robert take a look, too, and he felt all around--no eggs to be seen anywhere in or under the nest. The nest is perfectly made, too. One of the three doesn't look like it's developing, so that's gross, but we left it in there, for them to deal with. I then moved the ice cold eggs (didn't candle due to no flashlight but should have) from nest three over there, and when the ducks went in for the night, Khaki Mama went running over and sat right down without even looking at them. We were supposed to have ducklings by this week--they've been on that nest for a month. No ducklings. *Bigger sigh* In muscovy news, Gracie Mama is barely getting off her nest at all and is being just a wonderful mama. She's a proven mama, so we're hoping at least some of her 30 eggs hatch. Raven is yipping more just like Gracie did right before she started setting, so we're hoping that means Raven will be staying on her nest soon. There sure are enough eggs in it. Also, one of the muscovy gals is trying to start a nest in the walkway in the barn. On the cement. I'm thinking it's Pigeon since she was trying to make a nest earlier in front of the barn door. She's adorable but apparently not the brightest at being a mama. *facepalm and sigh* I think it was Dove who had two eggs next to the goose nest because I had to chase her out of there this morning when I was doing water. Thank goodness Robert thought to grab the incubator on sale at Rural King last weekend. It really might be the only way we get ducklings this year when here we were hoping to get many for meat birds and to sell. If my figuring is right, we should be getting ducklings from Squeaker Mama and Khaki Mama any day now. Petunia Goose is finally staying on her nest, so we might get a gosling or two in a month, but only Gracie Mama is the other duck staying on her nest. Raven was seen on the bike nest, and Broody Judy sure seems set on hers, but both of them have been out and about pretty much all day these days. Same with Mango, but her nest is still in the process of getting built up, so she's not ready to start setting yet.
I'm trying to be patient. I'm just so excited for ducklings! Behind the hay and barn lime and by the cat's couch we store extra feed bags on, there's her nest. This is from last week, so she likely has more eggs now. I counted them, and there are 27. Eep!
The other nests are getting taken care of and sat on, and Squeaker Mama and Khaki Mama should be hatching late this week at the earliest. No peeping sounds yet. We have several nests going now here in the barn. We have six duck nests going and one goose nest, though most aren't being sat on consistently yet. With all these nests going, we aren't getting any eggs right now, but that's okay as we have a ton still in cold storage.
Khaki Mama and Squeaker are still sharing their nest, and if my figuring is right, they should start hatching babies next week at the earliest. They are quite the little mama team, taking turns off the nest to bathe, eat, and drink, and they're best buddies now when they really weren't at the beginning. Since they don't leave that nest alone at all, we aren't quite sure how many eggs they have, though it seems to be quite a few, and we have no idea how many might hatch. We will likely have to put those babies or some of them in the brooder, though, if just to protect them from the other ducks. Gracie disappeared for a couple of days, and we were worried until we saw her come out of a hiding spot in the barn for food and water. Robert finally found her nest tucked away under some things, and she has something like 25 eggs in it. We had no idea she was working on one there, as we thought she had a different spot that I'd been clearing out (not the best place for a nest, and it was still a bit too cold). Now, she's good and broody and not moving. She's a proven mama, so we are hoping she ends up hatching most of those. Broody Judy (new name that just seems to fit that poor broody Pekin who runs around yelling at everyone most of the day) is starting to get enough eggs to sit on her nest more, which she will likely do starting next week. Then again, Pekins aren't known for being good moms, so she might never sit on the nest properly. We're still waiting to see how that works out. Nest #3 seems to be starting to develop as a nest, but we have yet to see anyone on it, so we aren't sure whose it is. We originally thought it might be Mango's new nest, but she's now more interested in a different one, so that nest might never end up working out, or we might find that it belongs to one of the Muscovy gals. No idea, but we keep checking. What we thought was Gracie's nest under the bicycle and kept clearing out has been slowly turning into a real nest with feathers and everything and more eggs, though none of the Muscovy gals (the only ones who could get to it) are sitting on it whenever I check. So, I figure that one will end up having a duck on it sometime soon whenever she finally decides she's ready. What's interesting is that Lucky has been seeming to guard that nest, so I'm curious to see whose nest it is. The latest nest, and a rather odd development, has been the one closest to the geese side of the barn though protected by a pallet fence. At first, I thought it was just someone laying eggs randomly there since they weren't in a pile like normal. As an experiment, I left the three eggs I saw there one day only to find five there the next morning in more of a usual nest formation. Now we see Mango, the proven Rouen mama who usually goes broody later than everyone else, there, but there's also Danny guarding it, something he's never done before, and Geri often rearranging it and sitting by it, when she has never gone broody before. We're calling it the Rouen nest and really wondering what on earth is going on there. Ducks are weird, I guess. Petunia Goose has a nest but isn't sitting on it at all except for at night. We really don't think she or Mary will be hatching any goslings this year, but we leave their nest alone in hopes one or the other changes her mind and starts sitting when there are enough eggs. We've caught the Muscovy gals messing with that nest during the day and even sitting on it from time to time, which is also weird. It's definitely goose mating season, though, with all the noise and violence that entails. We'll see who ends up sitting on that one, if that even happens. We don't use an incubator for our birds, so we rely on them hatching their babies or on local sources for new birds. This year, we have the most nests ever, the most broody mamas ever, and we're hoping that turns into the most ducklings ever. Next on the to-do list: building a duckling tractor. Our flock is a bit on the smaller side these days (for us), but that's about to change since we have several broody mamas sitting on nests. As of today, this is who we have:
One of the things we really enjoy is making up stories about our ducks and geese and telling them amongst our family. Each bird in our flock has such a different personality that it's become a bit of a family game to make up new stories about Geri and Little, Danny and the Cayugas, and then the geese and their whole new integration in the flock. These stories get added in with the Mr. Fluffers stories, as Mr. Floofers has a twin outdoor cat with a white patch that shows up very occasionally. Mr. Fluffers is the Milo Minderbinder of the neighborhood in our stories, always working an angle with the squirrels and crows, and he often hires Little for new adventures or works on getting Geri what she needs for her new plan. These are all fiction, obviously, but it sure can make a dark winter's night more fun in trying to add more and more to the family stories. Today, as I was sitting and knitting by the pellet stove (damp rain makes my fibromyalgia act up something fierce), I saw a young crow flutter down close to the house. When I got up to see what that was about, I saw it sitting on the log the muscovies prefer and talking as Danny (the Pekin drake) and the Cayuga pair were seeming to listen and talk back. Geri, the Rouen in charge, seemed just to notice as he walked by and continued on to a more grassy area to eat. They talked for a bit, and the crow flew off only for the rest to go in separate directions to eat.
Since then, crows have been flying in and out, perching on branches above them, but there hasn't been much talking going on, just watching. So, are they ducks and crows in collusion now? What are they planning or figuring out? |
Our FlockWe have Sebastopol geese, Embden geese, Muscovies, Pekins, Rouens, Cayugas, a Runner duck and her Pekin/Runner daughter, and Khaki Campbell ducks. These are their adventures. ArchivesCategories |