Thursday, April 27, 2006

New duckling!

Well, he worked at getting out of his shell for nearly three days, but about 15 minutes ago we hatched our first duckling!

He's (she's?) all black, with black feet and bill. It was the only fertile egg out of 7 duck eggs that were in the incubator.

It is some sort of mixed breed. We have two kinds of ducks out there, Pencilled Fawn Indian Runners, and Cayuga-Campbell crosses. The little squeaky black thing could be the latter, or a mix of all three breeds.

The only way we'll know is if it walks upright. Runners walk straight up and down, like the AFLAK duck from the TV commercials.

We'll let him dry off for a while, then take him out of the incubator to play with him for a while before putting him in the brooder to meet the chicks.

So far, we've hatched out two batches of guineas, a batch of chickens, this duckling, and now I'm working on a batch of Narragansett turkeys.

Nothing is exciting as watching eggs hatch. I don't think it will ever get old.

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