Holy Moly! Where do I even begin!?
When the kids got to school Friday morning, I noticed that two of the eggs had cracked. I didn't share the news since I knew they would be overly excited. By the time pour first recess rolled around, 5 of them had little crack and by the end of the day there were ten with cracks. I let them know and let them look before their first recess. Now, while this was pretty exciting, I didn't realize ducks would take soooo long. With our chickens growing up, it was a relatively quick process. Friday during school, they were cracked but we couldn't see anything.
I had gymnastics practice after school so I rushed the eggs to Tatroe's, who wanted to see them hatch so they took them home. I don't think they were prepared for the stink involved with hatching eggs. :-) The first duckling hatched Friday night, one more Saturday morning, and three more Saturday afternoon at their house. I picked up this stink box and took it home and had one hatch shortly after. Man-o-man did the incubator need cleaned.
Due to a broken air conditioner and me being a worry wart, I witnessed three more hatch in the middle of the night/Sunday morning. At this point I concocted a divider and put four of the ducklings on the heating pad with the chickens. They don't exactly get along so they have to be separated. Long story short, I got the incubator cleaned at like 3:30 Sunday morning.
I got another heating pad and slowly moved the ducks out of the incubator as they dried. The last three eggs hatch Sunday morning. Did you read that?!? All 12 eggs successfully hatched!!!!! I was pretty sure they were all dead at one point and time.
Oh! Did I mention that I bought baby chicks?! I didn't hatch them but rather they came in the mail. Yes, in the mail...in a box. I think the ladies at the post office were rather annoyed when I got there to pick them up. They were about 24 hours old when I got them and I hope in a few months they'll be laying my breakfast!! I have planned on getting them for a while but with having the ducks I thought no better time. Just so happened that they are about exactly the same age. It was a rather chaotic weekend to say the least. My plan was to have them in the same pen and raise them together but, ugh, the chicks are mean to my baby ducks!!!
With Jamison's graduation and birthday parties, I didn't have time to get two pens set up in the coop so my feather headed friends were living in my kitchen and it was growing rather smelly!! As of last night, my kitchen is put back together, smelling much better, and the birds are outside. My 31 fur balls got moved and have a little more room to wander about. Man did they run around/spaz when I first put them down.
...and then it stormed! I was a little stressed about them being out there for like 30 minutes before it torrentially down poured and thunderstormed. Gavin and my dad reassured me that they'd be okay. (Yes, I was raised on a farm and raised chickens but I've always worried about my animals like this.). Shockingly, this morning when I went out to check on them, they were fine and were all snoozing!
Now to keep them alive....
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