Stormy weather and baby animals

The weather is still quite stormy, has been for about two weeks, and it’s keeping me from doing much outside. Despite this, granny duck, has decided to try to start a nest again. I am collecting duck eggs for her to sit on but keeping her nest clean and free from chicken eggs is proving very challenging. Just like with chickens, domestic ducks allow other birds to lay eggs in their nests when they’re broody.

I will try to move her to a better location this year, but I think that I’m doomed to fail. I’ve tried before, I put her in a totally different location and kept her there for two weeks. When I was careless with the gate one day, she escaped and ran straight to her old nest. I thought it was so amazing that an animal could find its way back without a gps, from a location it didn’t know, turning all the right corners and at a brisk pace, that I just let her have her nest where she wanted to have it. Our current chickencoop isn’t the best place to have a broody duck right now. It’s very crowded with laying hens going in and out, and it needs to be re-painted on the inside, so I can avoid parasites moving in and thriving.

I was thinking about all the trouble it would give me to get this duck a decent nesting spot, but then I found some pictures of hers with previous nests and forgot about it. Last year Granny Duck, had a nest together with a Bielefelder hen. They both mothered the ducklings and tolerated each other’s presence.

Young falcons, predators have babies too!

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