Duck Eggs

Can you tell which one is the duck egg? My ducks lay jumbo eggs and I like to use them in cakes. They seem to make cakes more moist. I can't explain why but that's been my experience. Duck eggs are also more nutritious than chicken eggs. For a comparison of nutrients, click here.

While we're on the subject of duck eggs, I woke up this morning to see that Macaroni has 10 brand new fuzzy babies under her. There are 3 yellow ones and 7 dusky gray ones. I'm going to sell this batch of ducklings. I've got enough in the freezer and ducks are no fun to butcher. Chickens are much easier. It's impossible to scald a duck carcass--they're waterproof! DUH!

Here's Macaroni with her new babies.

My How They've Grown!

This bright orange lily bloomed today. It's so bright that I can even see it from a distance. My lavender plants are so lush and beautiful right now. I planted a dozen more this year I love them so much. The bees love them too.


Macaroni's babies are three weeks old and so fun to watch. I got a video of them eating coon tail in the pond today. Murphy and Macaroni are keeping watch over them, although Murphy doesn't like them getting too close to him. The hens have started laying eggs again, which I found out quite by accident. They're using the same nests that they hatched their babies in and I happened to notice the eggs while looking under the front porch. I gathered them all though, I've got enough ducklings.

Lunch Time

Lunch time for the kids while mom rests by the irises. The drakes watch from the water.

Macaroni's Babies

They were out when I got up this morning. Fourteen little fuzzballs so cute I can hardly stand it. Enjoy!

Twelve Acres Maternity Ward

We've got more babies than you can shake a stick at right now. Ollie's been scratching up a storm all day today showing her babies how to forage. I watched her catch a big worm that was obviously too big for the babies and she ate it herself. The little red chick managed to poke through the fencing then poked right back through! They scoot around like little water bugs. In fact, I'm thinking of naming the little black one Scooter.



Daisy's got six fuzzy butt babies to take care of now. I was duck midwife last night. I had to help two ducklings get out of their shells. It was amazing! One of them is the brightest yellow one. I think it's a little hen because the whole time I was removing bits of egg shell for her she was screaming for her mommy as loud as she could. Hen are much louder than drakes, even at a young age. Two of the ducklings had birth defects and I had to euthenize them--not easy, but the right thing to do. I found one dead near the pond's edge this morning. I'm not sure what happened other than an accidental drowning. The remaining six are energetic and the apples of their daddies' eyes! It's heartwarming to watch the ducks' family unit. The drakes accept the ducklings into the flock and are so happy to have Daisy back with them. I can tell that they miss having the hens around.



Macaroni has a nest full of fuzzy yellow puffballs now. I think all 14 of her eggs hatched. There are so many little heads in her nest that I can't count them all! She's not bringing them out just yet, but hopefully tomorrow she will. She's going to have a whole entourage following her around!

Waiting for Peeps

I don't know which is worse - waiting nine months for a baby to be born or waiting 28 days for ducklings to hatch. Tomorrow is Daisy's hatch date, Saturday is Ollie's and Macaroni's. I'm on pins and needles waiting, something I'm terrible at doing.

I've read that if you listen closely you can hear the chicks peep to their mama's through the egg shells when they're getting ready to hatch. I'm listening closely to all three hens' nests. You should see me, kneeling down above the sidewalk and deck with my ear to the floor like an Indian listening for thunder in the distance. I haven't heard anything yet.

I've moved Violet to the floor beneath the nest boxes. Her hatch date is June 15. Violet is low in the pecking order and not very good at defending her nest. The other hens were getting in there with her and laying eggs in her nest. I don't know how many times I had to haul a hen out of there and put Violet back in! So now she's got a private nest to herself and no one can bother her. She wasn't keen on the box at first but now she's content. Earlier this week Poppy got in Violet's nest and stepped on one of the eggs and broke it. I was so upset. I had that girl's neck in my fingers but didn't do it. She's a good layer. An airhead, but a good layer. The egg that was broke wasn't one of the Silkie eggs.

And now another of my Australorps is broody, this time it's Iris. I don't think I'll indulge her though. My back surgery is June 18 and I won't be able to look after chicks then. I might let a broody hen hatch some eggs after that though. Lily's been plucking her belly feathers lately and she may go broody. She's my biggest girl and could easily cover a dozen eggs. We'll see.

I'm hoping that I'll be posting pictures and videos of baby ducklings tomorrow. In the meantime, Betty and I (and little Scarlet) are just waiting...

Candling Results - Day 12

I took this photo of my ducks last July when they were 3 days old. This is what's in store for us!

We're almost to the mid-point of egg incubation here at Twelve Acres. I was fortunate to be able to candle Ollie's and Macaroni's eggs today. I had no luck at all getting pictures though. Try as we might, we just couldn't get a decent photo. I'm no pro at egg candling but at this stage of the game it's very easy to tell if an egg is good or bad. Good eggs are so filled with chick or duckling that they appear to be solid inside and show a very large, dark shadow along with an air cell on the large end of the egg. Bad eggs show nothing at all and sometimes you can still see the yolk. I removed any bad eggs I found and cracked them just to be sure. I had 100% accuracy! Here are the results so far.

Ollie (Buff Orpington hen): 4 good eggs, 2 bad

Daisy (Cayuga duck): 10 good, she removed 4 bad ones herself

Macaroni (Blue Swedish duck): 15 good, 1 bad

I will candle Violet's eggs in about 10 days and find out how many good ones she's got. She's setting like an old pro.

Another Broody Duck!

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!

Derek Drives A Big Tonka Truck

Look what Derek got to do today! Here is Derek operating his grandpa's front loader to clean up the shallow end of the pond. Years of silt have washed into the pond and we are trying to clean it out and make the pond a bit deeper at the end.

Derek was in heaven. It reminded me of when he was a toddler and played with his big Tonka dump truck and front loader. It's really cool that he got to operate a big one today. Jim taught him the levers and then took the back seat. Derek got the hang of it pretty quick.


In other news, we are currently on day two of duck egg incubation. Daisy began to set the eggs in ernest yesterday. She's doing a fine job of covering all 14 of them (at least we think we can count 14!). She took a short break yesterday evening then got back to work.

Also we have a pair of wood ducks using the fiberglass duck box on the other side of the pond. The hen has been seen in the early morning with her head sticking out. We think she's laying a clutch of eggs right now. The wood ducks visit each evening and the hen goes into the nest to supposedly lay an egg. Now, wouldn't it really be something to have a brood of my own domestic ducks on the pond as well as a brood of wood ducks with their mama?

What Do I Do?

***UPDATE***
There are now 13 eggs (up from 10 on Monday) that I can see. There may be more covered up with debris.

After Daisy got off her secret stash of eggs yesterday I peeked through the boards above to see if I could count them. I could count 10 that were visible. She's got the rest of them covered with debris.

Now that I've found Daisy's clutch of eggs, I'm wondering what I should do next. She's not incubating the eggs long enough in my opinion. She'll sit on the eggs half the day and spend the other half with the drakes in the pond.

If she were setting those eggs in ernest, I'd leave them be. As it is, I fear I'm going to have a pile of rotten duck eggs in a few weeks. Near as I can tell she's been laying these eggs for about 2 weeks straight.

The eggs are in the farthest corner beneath the front porch. I'm not little enough to crawl in there and retrieve them and neither is anyone I live with. I've thought about using a hoe to pull them out.

What would you do in this situation?

Duck Mystery Partly Solved

While feeding my flock this morning I noticed that the two duck hens were once again MIA. As I walked past the front porch with a can of corn for the ducks I thought to myself, "What if it's as simple as a nest under the front porch?" I stopped and knelt down (hard to do when your back feels like mine) and looked into the farthest, deepest recesses of the front porch. I saw a dark blob in the corner. I went around to the other side and did the same. Then I saw her. Daisy, in the corner in an indentation in the ground. She had her head tucked under her wing and ignored me.

Yesterday, Derek and I walked the perimeter of Twelve Acres (which is 12 acres, by the way) and thought we might stumble upon a duck nest made in the grass. No luck. We got back to the house and saw that the ducks had returned while we were out looking for them. I'm so stupid. And ducks are the smartest creatures on earth.

I still can't find Macaroni's secret spot though. I'm running out of ideas too. I don't know if Daisy's got eggs under her or not, but I'll check today when she leaves her dark corner for a break. If I'm figuring correctly, there should be 3 eggs under her.

The drakes wander aimlessly while their wimmin are gone. Kinda like men, right ladies? I think the hens should leave a list of chores for them to do while they're unattended. Or a deck of cards and some beer.

My own males are gone for the day. Derek's at school, step-son's at camp for the week and Jim is helping his dad all day today. So I've got this entire farm to myself and I'm in heaven. I treated myself to a breakfast fit for a Queen: an omelet with fresh chives, fried ham and provolone cheese with a slice of ham on the side. Was it ever good!

I've integrated the peeps with the hens and it's going really well. The hens aren't real happy about the peeps' energetic shenanigans, but they're coping. Lily had to lay out some ground rules but once they got established all was well. I'll be taking pictures later on today. It's cute to see the tiny baby chickens with the gigantic hens! I've got them in their pens for now just to make sure they don't wander off and get lost.

Mysterious Duck Disappearances

For the past two days our two hen ducks, Daisy and Macaroni, have been gone half the day. They disappear in the early hours of the day then come back in the early afternoon. First Macaroni comes back and then Daisy comes back about an hour later. We have tried to find where they are going but have yet to stumble upon their secret location. We went searching for them this afternoon and they came back while we were out looking for them!

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Wood Ducks

For the past few days I've been seeing this pair of wood ducks in the pond. We have a fiberglass duck nest box at the far edge and they seem to be checking it out. Yesterday I even got to see the hen standing on top of it. I don't know if she's got a clutch of eggs inside or not but I would love to see her with a brood of ducklings in the pond! This is the first time I've ever seen wood ducks in my life so I'm excited.

At ten days old, the chicks have their wing and tail feathers. Next, the feathers on their backs and necks grow in followed by belly and head feathers. They're very active and energetic at this stage. It's supposed to warm up this weekend and I hope to have them out in the lawn in a temporary enclosure so they can forage and scratch in the dirt. It will also give them a chance to meet the big chooks in a protected environment. Integrating new birds into an established flock should take place over a period of weeks if at all possible.

I'm a bit concerned about the smallest Sussex. She isn't keeping pace with the others in growth. She seems to be very lethargic at times and she's not as vigorous as the others. She's now the smallest chick, even smaller than the Campine (a medium breed). I am keeping watch over her but that's about all I can do for her. Hopefully she'll perk up soon.

Cayuga Egg

My little Cayuga hen, Daisy, laid her first egg today. She planted it smack dab in the middle of the front yard nowhere near the nest box I've provided near the pond. If you've never held a black duck egg in your hand, the black color is pigment on the shell. It rubs off easily to reveal a white shell underneath.
The ducks have split into two camps, each with one hen and three drakes. There's Camp Macaroni and Camp Daisy now that breeding season is here. I need more hens! My plan is to place about 6 duck eggs under the first broody chicken I get. Once they've hatched I'll take over mothering duties. I'll raise the hens and butcher the drakes that result. Of course this elaborate plan depends on having a broody hen. Why is it that they're never broody when you want them to be?

Lately I've been offering 10 extra large chicken eggs and two duck eggs for $2.50. It seems to be popular. I realize I'll never get rich selling my extra eggs but it sure is nice to have it offset the cost of feed and bedding for my birds. Not to mention it gives me a chance to talk to others who appreciate fresh, free-ranged eggs. And if we're very lucky the ducks will be putting on a synchronized swimming demonstration!

Macaroni Figures It Out

You may recall my blue Swedish duck hen, Macaroni, playing pranks on me with her eggs (here she is with 3 of our 6 drakes in tow). I was anxious to try a duck egg so I dragged an old wooden crate to the area next to the dock that the ducks enjoy. We've been feeding them there the past few weeks and they seem to like that area. I placed two golf balls inside the nest box and pushed them down into the soft mud to make them stay in place. A few days later, one of the golf balls mysteriously disappeared. (Picture ducks playing golf.) The ground is sloped under the box, so the golf ball is now in the pond under the dock somewhere.
I was outside this afternoon getting the grill ready to cook supper and on a whim I walked to the end of the dock and looked inside, hoping against hope that Macaroni had laid her daily egg there. To my surprise, there was a duck egg inside the nest box! What a good girl! It took her 9 days to get the hint.

The egg is pale olive green and the shell is very smooth. The photo shows the egg before I washed the mud off of it. I can't wait to try it and compare it to the eggs my chooks lay. Duck eggs are going to be a rare treat for me. I've only got two hens; the other is a Cayuga named Daisy. Cayuga eggs start out black and gradually fade to gray as the season goes by. I don't know if I should save them and try to sell them. I'm not sure if there is much of a demand for duck eggs around here. Maybe I'll try it this summer and see what kind of response I get. I hear duck eggs are good for baking but I have yet to test that theory.

Double Dose of Diving Ducks

I woke up this rainy morning to see four wild ducks in our pond. It's always exciting to have wild waterfowl visit the pond. I grabbed my bird guides and set about identifying our aquatic guests.
I have two bird books: "Smithsonian Handbooks Birds of North America Eastern Region" and "The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America". I like the Smithsonian book slightly better because it uses actual photographs of the bird which makes it slightly easier for me to identify. I also like the feature at the bottom of each page that allows you to write down where and when you saw the bird.
The first pair is two Ring-Necked Duck drakes. I assume they are last year's hatchlings and unmated bachelors. They were relaxing and enjoying themselves, diving now and then for a bite to eat.
The second pair were a much smaller pair of Hooded Mergansers. These little ducks are just adorable. Mr. Merganser has a very dapper hat and pin striped suit. Mrs. Merganser looks a bit tousled, but has very interesting stripes and patches of rusty browns. What a pretty pair of ducks!

Cruel Joke

My ducks think they're funny. I've been wondering when the hens were going to start laying. It's late winter and it's high time I start seeing some duck eggs.

As I made my coffee this morning I looked out the kitchen window and saw this.

My question is, which one of you is going to go out there and get it for me?

I can feel it staring at me through the window. And the ducks are just laughing at me.

Duck Tracks

We have 8 ducks and we have a pond with a light dusting of snow on some of the frozen areas. The ducks left these tracks yesterday and each one tells a story.

It looks like four of them were in a hurry--flappy feet slippin' and tails draggin'. The others were more composed and left neat little triangles as they waddled along.

Some days my footprints probably look like the first group. But today I'm waddling along calmly.

Thawed Out

It's been very mild this week and all the snow has melted. Areas of the pond have thawed, much to the delight of the ducks. It's nice that they're back in the pond and out of our driveway. It was beginning to look like a duck poo mine field!



The chooks are thrilled to be out in the lawn again! There's not much "green" to eat but they don't care. It's much better than being trapped in the coop by snow. This big Australorp is Lily. She's my biggest girl at just over 6 pounds and she lays the most beautiful dark brown, speckled jumbo eggs. What a good girl!
























Sweet Pea clucks with delight as she nibbles on grass and clover leaves. If I crouch down she'll hop up on my shoulder for a minute or two, then hop back down. It's as if she's got to get a close look at me and say hello in her own special way! What a fun chickie she is!
























This is our rooster, Coq au Vin Silver. He's been giving me a hard time lately and he better watch his step. He's not too skinny to stew!

Iris is busy in a nest box. See the dried grass in there? That's the stuff I was talking about yesterday. The girls just love it.

A strong storm blew through last night and knocked our power out for 2 hours. Jim had to get a generator from his dad's to keep our basement from flooding. One of our two sump pumps died but he had a back up on hand, so we're OK.

Peanut Brittle and Cold Ducks

Mom went back up to Michigan today after spending the weekend with us for the pie party. Jim and Derek went Christmas shopping. I had the house to myself and no distractions. It was the perfect opportunity to try my hand at making peanut brittle. I planned to give it as gifts as part of the homemade Christmas theme this year.



Speaking of homemade, mom knitted these cute corn hot pads. They fit over the handle of a cast iron skillet. She made enough to share them with my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law. Mom's the knitter; I'm the cooker.

Let me just say that candy making is not my thing. This was the first time I've ever actually used Jim's candy thermometer and I certainly have a healthy respect for boiling sugar! I was very cautious at all times during the cooking process. I didn't know that boiling sugar crackles at 300°! The candy took a long time to heat up to that hot but when it was ready I poured it into the heated, prepared pans and was amazed at the way it cooled into an immoveable sheet of peanutty sugary yumminess! I mistakenly grabbed the thermometer too low when I removed it from the pan to pour out the brittle, but fortunately it didn't break when I dropped it on the top of the stove!
























Look at this, isn't it something? I made this huge chunk of brittle just for my buddy Chris who is going to quit smoking. When you're craving a smoke there's nothing like a gigantic wafer of caramelized sugar and peanuts to chomp on. Here ya go Chris! Enjoy!



These little bundles of peanut brittle will be given to our UPS and mail carriers as Christmas gifts. I packaged them up in plastic wrap filled with just the right amount to nibble on during the rest of their routes tomorrow.

It's bitterly cold tonight. I just checked the thermometer again and it's now down to 4°. I was out before dinner to feed the ducks and check on them. They seemed to be miserable in the howling, freezing wind and I felt very sorry for them. I enlisted Derek's help in getting them into the chicken coop for the night. He went out to the shop and got a long pole to herd the ducks out of their little swimming hole in the pond. Ducks aren't fond of walking very far and halfway to the chicken coop they stopped and hunkered down, refusing to go any further. So we resorted to picking them up and carrying them the rest of the way to the coop. Picking them up gave me the opportunity to check each of the eight ducks. I'm happy to say that they are all very fat and strong with a dense covering of feathers. At one point, I had a drake under each arm and those boys were heavy! Ducks are extremely well insulated, but I doubt they would have survived the weather tonight.



The chickens were very unhappy about having eight ducks tossed into their coop. They all panicked and scrambled up onto their roosts. Silver glared down at the ducks from above. But he was smart to keep his scrawny butt up on the perch. Murphy's a big, strong drake and probably wouldn't tolerate a rooster bothering him.



Derek is going to let the ducks back outside in the morning. The weather isn't supposed to be nearly so harsh tomorrow. Jim went out to check on them after dinner and said that they were all happily grooming and oiling their feathers. So it seems all the birds are settled in comfortably for the night.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, here are some shots of the winter wonderland that is Twelve Acres.



Ice is still on the trees from the storm that blew through Friday. This is a photo of the fence row trees that are about 700 feet away from the house.
























The sun going down.