Life in the duck egg nest box just got crazier. Pear laid 15 eggs in July and then went broody and started to incubate them, (they are due to hatch around 26th of this month). Within a week she had been joined by our Red Leghorn cross who bizzarely, was the same chicken who tried to nest-share with her back in the spring. And today, the two of them have been joined by our black blue-egg layer born last September. Up until today she had been laying her egg in there each day which we had been dutifully removing, but now she has decided to stop laying and start incubating…. Poor old Pear!! And poor Jack who gets routinely pecked and pinched every time she goes anywhere near: Pear does a very good pinch indeed, often not letting go for several seconds!!! We candled three of the eggs this evening and all three contained live ducklings so at the moment all bodes well for hatching – let’s hope it continues that way...
Meanwhile our current crop, now all around three weeks old, seem to have suddenly doubled in size. All are doing really well with the first signs of lavender/grey appearing in our two 'yellow' ducklings!! In another three weeks or so we should be able to start sexing them and the plan is at that stage to start to sell some. We also may have a buyer for our two goslings - they are coming to view them in the next week!!!