I finally found out where Macaroni has been laying her eggs. I found her beneath the raised sidewalk on the south side of the house, about 6 feet from the edge of the pond. I noticed that I hadn't seen her all day and I thought I'd peek between the cracks of the sidewalk to see if I could find her. Sure enough, I could see her sitting quietly. About an hour later she was off her nest and I went over to quickly count how many eggs she was sitting on. I counted 16!If she hatches even half of those eggs she'll have 8 babies and Macaroni's sitting on at least 14 eggs that we can see, so half of those would be 7. I've read that you should expect 10% of duck eggs to not hatch. So at the most I could expect 27 ducklings!
I never saw any of this coming and I'm really excited about the possibility of adding more hens to my flock and having some nice young duck in the freezer. Keep your fingers crossed!
Holy macaroni! That's quite a clutch! I'll keep my fingers and toes crossed for a successful hatch!
ReplyDeleteSusan, you said it! Neither of these hens is very big but they're both sitting on huge clutches of eggs. We'll know the results of their efforts the first week of June.
ReplyDeleteGot my fingers crossed you have some good hatches.
ReplyDeleteGood Luck!!!!So cool....Little baby duckies are soo cute!
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your ducks and their hatches! We are up to 28 ducklings all hatched by their mamas with one more nest due to hatch on Thursday. What types of ducks do you have? They look like they have a wonderful place to live.
ReplyDeleteWhat fun!! I'm wishing one of my Butterscotch Call girls would go broody on me! I would love to see some little ducklings following them around. Happy Mother's Day, Amy!! Tammy
ReplyDeleteoh my - you're eating your ducks...I like them too much as pets!!!
ReplyDeleteReading your post about duck in the freezer I'm reminded of a chef who lived at my place for a while. He was Russian but had lived in France and other countries too so he was knowledgeable of French cooking. He kept telling me about Chocolate Duck and that I should try it. All I could think was yuck! Who'd want to eat chocolate with duck meat. I agreed to buy the ingrediants and he made the meal. Let me tell you, I've never tasted anything like it! It was incredible. The sweet of the chocolate mixed with the meat - it was amazing. Since you love to cook, may I suggest to you that you might want to try making Chocolate Duck. The chocolate was made up as a sauce that you pour over the duck meat but I'm sorry I have no recipe to share.
ReplyDeleteHey! Congrats! Finally got some broody-ness going on there! It is cool to see it happen, so unexpected and natural.
ReplyDeleteI wish you good luck!
Ron
Thanks everyone for the well wishes. So far the hens have been very dutiful with their individual clutches. I'm very happy that they've decided to hatch their own eggs. It just goes to show that it's best to leave things to nature and not interfere.
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping for good hatches. I've got visions of roast young duck this fall.
Barbara, I've never heard of a chocolate sauce on duck but when I think about it, it really makes sense! Currently, I use Emeril Lagasse's miso roast duck recipe and it is to die for! Thanks for the suggestion!
Ron, I agree, it's very unexpected and natural. Just the way it should be!
Joanna, from one bird lover to another, thank you for the well wishes! I know you have a love for poultry like me and you understand how exciting it is to see one of your own hens raise her babies.
Tammy, thank you! Happy mother's day to you too!
Classy, while I won't eat any of my original flock of ducks, I let it be known from the start that their young (if any) were fair game. I plan to keep a few hens but all the drakes will end up on our table.
I am glad you did not have to move Daisy's eggs and that she has settled down to setting them herself. If the eggs are in one layer they should do just fine. We had rouens that hatched out some and also a pekin one year. Our rouen had too many eggs under her and some were double stacked, and ended up with only a few hatching. I can't wait to see how yours do! Wishing you the best!
ReplyDeleteSunny, Macaroni's eggs are in a single layer. Some of Daisy's eggs are double stacked. I hadn't thought about that so it's interesting that you mentioned that. Thanks for the info!
ReplyDeleteHey that's just ducky! I am so glad I took Dirt out to dinner and had him try the roasted duck breast. Now he is very helpful in our daughters duck project. And like you I can not wait for those little ducky breasts to be on my plate!
ReplyDeleteOh, so glad we found your blog! Look forward to following the duck adventure.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to see how many hatches... I know nothing about ducks!
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