Duckling and Gosling News

We have our first duckling from our indian runner flock hatched!  YAY!  They are so adorable and so active!

Unfortunately the second duck egg didn't hatch, so this one will have to wait a week for more company.  Currently she has a couple of giant cochin chicks in the bin with her.  She hopped the 6 inch tall wall of the brooder box into the next one with about 10 giant cochins who don't know her.  They chased her around and made lots of noise.  I had to put up a cardboard divider to keep the duckling in the correct box. =}  The duck antics are already in play!  I watched a video on vent sexing waterfowl.  It is much easier than chickens!  So I tried it on this little one and it looks to be a girl!  We shall see how accurate I am in about 3 wks.

I have about 10-15 more duck eggs in the incubator and I candled my sebbie eggs last night and at least 6 of 7 were fertile!!  YIPEEE!!  The last one was dirty on the outside, so hard to see through, but it looked infertile.  I will wait a while longer and check it again.  Today I am putting in 3 more sebbie eggs and 5 ducks eggs!  I will now start collecting giant cochin eggs for the store hatch.

I found a nice home for our mini-lop rabbit and gave one of the lion heads to my friend.  So now we just have the 4 American Chinchillas and a pair of lion heads.  The 2 does are due this Friday to kindle (have babies).  We have put the kindling (nesting) boxes in their cages and are watching carefully.  So exciting!  I plan to breed the lion heads in the next few days too.  There has been LOTS of cage, box and kennel washing at our house.  We had to repair some of the cages and put tarps on top and sides for weather protection.  We even got two large cages for when the babies grow bigger.  So I think we are all set in the rabbit area.  I even picked up a few extra small carry cages that would work for rabbits or chickens. 

We had one dove that was aggressively picking on the other two, chasing them from perch to perch, relentlessly.  I accidentally, on purpose let him out.  Now there are two left and they seem pretty content.  I love their cooing sounds.  Hopefully the two loose ones can find each other.

Sadly, I lost one female duck.  She couldn't walk and I brought her in the garage.  After asking advice and putting her on antibiotics and vitamins she seemed to be getting better, but then one morning we found her passed away.  Poor girl!  Most people I talk to think she ate something strange that she couldn't digest.

I decided to sell Turkey Butt this week.  She was such a quirky bird!  She was on top of the rabbit cages, then on the greenhouse, then finally she jumped on the netting of the chicken run and ripped a big hole in it.  I guess they like to roost really high up.  She also talks alllllllll the time, you can't have a conversation anywhere near her!  Silly bird!  So I figured since I didn't want more chaos at my house (getting more turkeys) then she needs to be with some birds as crazy as she is.  I sold her to a friend who has a flock of midget white turkeys and she is as happy as a clam with them!