Duck Day

One of the scariest days for a poultry breeder, is the day when they release young chicks into the main flock. As breeders, we have watched the eggs in the incubator develop into chicks that painstakingly break their way out of the egg. The wet, clumsy, helpless chick must rest as it dries out, sometimes after a two day ordeal of breaking out of the shell. A few do not survive after the effort.

After that, the tiny chick seems to take forever to grow. Then one day you look at them and they are "teenagers" and nearly as big as their parents! Soon after this, the day comes when they have to be introduced to the main flock, covey, gaggle or whatever term is appropriate to the species.

Today was THAT day for our young, fawn Indian Runner Ducks. Less that a year ago, their parents arrived here as three day old chicks.

Shipping poultry here is a horrible ordeal, most likely..... though unproven..... due to poor, careless handling at the El Paso, Texas airport. THREE shipments of Muscovy & Runner ducks were sent before WE gave up on getting the number of ducks we paid for. We had an unprecedented 70% mortality in the shipments..... normal is below 5%. Debbie & I could not bear to see the duckling the hatchery had fussed over, die due to some machismo idiot's tossing the cases around on the Mexican border!

The ducks that survived to adulthood, FIVE out of TWENTY we ordered, have been wonderful, animated additions to our poultry flock. We keep Runner Ducks as "yard ornaments". We do not eat them, though we collect their eggs to eat and hatch. It is always an odd, funny sight to see a line of these ramrod straight ducks running across the yard!

Despite being less than a year old, our three hens laid fertile eggs and we were able to hatch five of them this Winter. One is still very tiny at just three weeks old, but four others have made it to young adulthood.

For the last four days, we took them outside after the morning chill was gone and put them and 14 chicken chicks in a large livestock waterer for the day. At dusk they all came back in.

But there was just something about the ducks that seemed to tell me that they needed to roam, to be free. This morning, we took the four ducks out to the duck pond. The other ducks were off foraging, so I put them on one of the steps. One by one they first jumped into the pond, swam to the other side and got out and started "discussing" this new experience.

After a minute or so, one of the two mature drakes, maybe the sire, waddled over and sort of herded them around a bit. Soon, the other four adults joined him and one hen gently urged them into the pond, where all nine frolicked for the rest of the day, climbing out only to allow the youngsters to dry off and rest. Instinctively, the adults knew the young ones did not know to use their oil gland to waterproof their feathers. However, we soon noticed that the dominate hen & drake would grab the youngsters one by one and pull at their chests where the oil gland is located, as if to try to educate them as to where it was and what it was for!

Like all magical days, this one had to end. At dusk, the adults were reluctant to leave the pond. Every other evening, they would walk, absolutely straight upright, into the pen for the night. However today, the youngsters, who had no knowledge of the pen, were trying to sleep on ground outside of the pond, which is vulnerable to predators right now. But the dominate drake was NOT leaving the babies and the others were NOT leaving the drake.

Debbie & I made a line and started herding the youngsters. The adults followed, then ran to lead and in a matter of seconds, there was a line of well-postured little "soldiers" heading for the pen, led by the dominate drake.

Once in the pen, the children played in the mud, of course, for a while, ate, drank and then explored the pen until they got bored and laid down for a rest. As I write this, they are all nine snuggled into a half of a clamshell dog crate for the night, safe and happy to be a flock of desert ducks!

NOW, there is the baby still inside in the brood pen and some 40 more duck eggs in the incubator to have to face "duck day". Still, I would rather plan on releasing the chicks into the flock, than worry over a golf tee time, ski lift, stamp collection, or where we will eat dinner (at 3 in the afternoon), as so many retirees do!