Welcome baby Fiona

Hi Guys!

Well most of my regular followers will know that during the tornado last month I lost my batch of eggs that I had been incubating. The lady that I bought them from was as sweet as she could be and offered to send me a new batch for just the cost of shipping.

I was reticent about starting over again as the last episode upset me so much but my daughter thought I should at least try it one more time. So I did.

There are so many variables with hatching ducks. The temp , the humidity, all has to be just so. Unfortunately its very difficult finding accurate thermometers so you can think all is well and you may be off by a degree or two , spelling disaster) Tricky business. I had 18 eggs but by the end of it when all were overdue I told myself that I would be content if I had just one. If I could only see one born healthy. (several had made it as far as pecking their bills out and then died).

Well this little sweetie is Fiona.

 She was a very overdue egg ( by about three and a half days) that was very lively, wobbling and cheeping almost non stop. But after she had struggled for 31 hours to break more than her bill out of the egg I took matters into my own hands. I had lost too many already to lose her. It was "No- No Number 1". Never mess with ducks hatching. If they're too weak to hatch they're too weak to survive etc etc. Well at this point I figured that a weak duck was better than a dead duck so at 3:30 this morning I started picking at the shell around her bill. She cheeped and pushed with me. between the two of us (and a lot of it was me, I'm afraid) a lusty, opinionated female (I assume) was born into the world.

All babies look like aliens . Its a fact of nature.

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww...

Taking a break..

And as Fiona was on her own (her only living sibling was born crippled) Tweety and I ran down to the local feed store and bought a mallard baby about her size to keep her company.

Fiona is the silver duck that looks like she went a little crazy with the hairspray. lol

And for those who are wondering, I filled their water bowl with marbles to keep the ducks from drowning and also keep them from splashing all the water out!)

So unless the remaining eggs surprise us with good news ,Fiona is our little miracle baby.

And for those of you who are wondering how our other brood of 16 are doing. the picture below was several  days ago. (they have now outgrown the bathtub, or at least, out STUNK the bathtub and have been moved outside in a pen)

Thanks for coming by everyone! I'll  be back in a sec with a card for you!