Star & Sparrow is currently overrun with duck tails and duck tales. Woo-oo. Bryon and I are still relatively new to the wonderful world of keeping quackers. It’s clear we have much more to learn, but we’re mostly enjoying the process. 

We got our first trio of Welsh Harlequin ducks last August. The two hens started laying in December, and not long after, the mating began. So at the end of February we loaded up the incubator with a dozen of their eggs. A few weeks ago, we hatched 100% of our chicken eggs, and 25 peeping chicks are currently growing bigger (and messier) in a large brooder. Now, we didn’t anticipate that high a hatch rate for the chicks and certainly didn’t expect the same result for the ducks. 

For the bulk of the time in the incubator, the eggs are on a regular turning schedule. Once in the final stage, they need to be stationary so the babies can pip their way out of the shell. I had a sinking feeling after Bryon candled the eggs before lock down and only found three to be viable. Ducks take about 28 days to hatch, and by Day 29, I was losing hope.

But Saturday morning (Day 30), I spied a large crack in one of the eggs. I sat on the floor, watching the little bill work its way through the shell, while I softly quacked to it. (Supposedly the babies still inside are encouraged by the noises of babies already out in the world.) Eventually, it stumbled out of its shell in order to chirp and nap the rest of the day, while the other two eggs did nothing. So here we are with only one duckling all alone in its brooder, with me checking in on it. A lot. Once it gets a little bigger, we’ll see if it might be able to go in with the chicks. If not, ducks sometimes imprint on humans, seeing them as their protector. 

Meanwhile, we’ve had a disappointing discovery with our Muscovy ducks. Our friendly “mufflers” (so named for their quiet talking versus quacking) came from a local poultry auction in November. In our inexperience, we determined we had six hens and one drake, known as Dark Chocolate. “He” seemed to be attempting to mate with some of the hens and also acts more aggressively, like continuing to break into the goose pen, even after some battle wounds.

When we finally started getting Muscovy eggs last week, I posted on a Facebook group page to ask if there was any chance they might be fertile, given that we didn’t think the mating had been successful, along with a few pictures of the birds. I received about a dozen replies informing me that we have all hens! So those eggs are definitely not going to hatch, even with the hens sitting on them. Instead, I’ve started replacing the Muscovy eggs with ones from our Welsh Harlequin and Cayuga ducks. So we’ll see if anything happens while we try to find a Muscovy drake.

In other ducky news, we’ve had a bit of cross-breed interaction lately:

• Our ornery gander Sammy keeps trying to mate with some of the Muscovy hens when they take baths in the large pool outside the bird yard, so we can only let them out at the same time if I’m around to chase him off.

• Wendell the Welsh Harlequin drake goes after the Cayuga hens every chance he gets, which really hurts Mary and Ruth’s feelings.

• We have one flighty chicken, Amelia, who prefers living with the ducks. I’m not sure the feeling is mutual.

• Lady Gravy the turkey—who just started laying herself— was spotted yesterday squished into the mufflers’ house sitting on the other duck eggs.

  You never know what you might discover any given day on the farm. It might be hard work, but at least it’s not boring.