I should know better but last month I slipped half a dozen fertile duck eggs under a bantam hen with little hope of any hatching after the long, rough journey by mail from Shetland.
Then, one morning ten days ago there were four black and yellow ducklings under a fiercely protective hen. In the last ten days they seem to have increased in size five-fold on a diet of chick crumbs and fresh grass.
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| Ten day old Shetland ducks and surrogate mother |
I should know better because ducks have always been a lot of trouble, they make a mess around the steading with a mixture of water, mud and excrement everywhere you walk, they have to be herded into their nighttime accommodation safe from mink, pine martens and foxes but on the plus side they do lay lots of eggs that make the best sponge cakes, they eat snails ( intermediate host of liver fluke) and are real characters.
Hopefully these ducklings will be confused by their hen mother, adopt her behaviour, think they are hens and follow her inside at dusk even after she has lost interest in them.
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10 day old ducks now think they are hens, emerging from the hen house
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Why Shetland ducks? They are a tough, hardy and productive rare breed so it's worth putting in some effort to keep them going..... you never know...... there may be a need for the genes of tough hardy little ducks that lay as many eggs as Khaki Campbells in the future.
For more information on Shetland ducks see...
Rare Breeds Survival Trust
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