Blackham Ducks 2017 - The Fall Four

2017 was a year for backyard birds. We started in the spring, incubating eggs and ended up with four babies. Four ducklings that grew up and flew away so fast, we don't have too many memories with them. Admittedly, we had two geese at the time too. We have many memories of the geese. Then the geese were gone.  We then took in a pair of ducks from a neighbor. There were eggs, and offspring. We ended up with The Fall Four, who would be with us for a while. This is the start of their story~

While we had a momma duck, I didn't want to give up the eggs (she'd stop laying if she sat) and I didn't want a full clutch. It was really too late in the season for babies, but Grayson was intrigued to see what a Mallard/Buff cross would look like. So we stuck five eggs in the incubator. Early candling indicated one of the eggs was not developing, but the other four progressed as expected. Soon it was time for the hatching. We've hatched three times before, but this was the first time I was there to watch every baby emerge. I caught it on camera too (video below).  Two eggs hatched pretty quickly, but the other two seemed stuck. It's SO stressful to watch and wait. Finally the third duckling made it out, but the fourth was still stuck and struggling. I ended up having to help a little, and I wasn't sure she was going to make it. Even when the egg was off, she was still curled up in the same shape, not really moving.

She (I don't know if this was one of the girls, just assuming that she ended up being our smallest one) finally seemed to unfurl, and she was fine. We had four, fluffy baby duckies. We had the usual weeks of bathing, feeding, playing ... and of course changing their pen. Oh ... the poop! When they got a little bigger, we moved them outside. Even as fast as they grew, I was worried about the timing. Our other batches of birds had hatched in the Spring, and were fully grown before flying away. I didn't think these babies were prepared to be wild. And being a mix with a domestic Buff, they were a bit bigger and I wasn't sure they would be able to fly. They did though, only as far as over the fence and into the neighbor's yard. We retrieved them (Blackfoot hadn't made it over), and committed to caring for them throughout the winter. We upgraded the pen we'd been using to a more sturdy and spacious dog run (even though we let them free range most of the time). We'd never kept ducks during the winter before, and I wasn't sure how it would go. We made it to Spring ... but that will be another post.

Two boys - Two girls

Abbot and Costello, Gabby Girl and Blackfoot

Here's a video compilation of The Fall Four - Blackham Ducks 2017