This evening, I phoned up my friend Antony, husband of Helen. Helen who is away on business in Canada this week and Antony are the source of the fertile duck eggs. They have an egg incubator and hatched out some additional duck eggs. They had put eggs into the incubator at the same time my hen started sitting on the duck eggs over here. This well timed hatch was successful with five ducklings coming out of their shells at the same time mine did over here. I had phoned this evening to see what the duckling status was with them on the other side of the village.
I'm glad I phoned, Antony had a lot on his plate! In addition to their two small boys (ages 7 and 1) they have two new kittens, a lot of adult poultry and a wonderful rescue greyhound. In normal circumstances Antony can handle all of these things in Helen's absence with quite a bit of grace and ability. Things go along very smoothly, the house keeps on running. Tonight however the heat lamp that was set up for the new ducklings stopped working. We think the big bulb went.
I said I'd be right over. I drove the short distance to Antony and Helen's house and collected the rapidly cooling ducklings. The ickle baby ducks were put in a small cardboard box and transported very quickly back to our place. After a very quick pause to get a photo of the box-o-ducks, I put them one by one underneath my hen.
There are now EIGHT day old ducklings here at Whitelees. My mother hen has accepted these new ducklings and they have accepted her.
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