Predators, broody mamas, and duck eggs... Oh My!

Petunia my lone Embden goose

My chickens (from L to R) Faline Dominique, Simba Brahma Roo, Nala Dominique, and Precious Americauna.

Well I usually do not post more than once a day, but after all the excitement with my animals this week, I needed to write a quick update!


This year Craig and I took another stab at raising pet chickens. We got 4 day-old chicks in the mail this past April. One chick died, and the others thrived. Then steadily over the next two months we expanded to include 5 chickens (one Brahma rooster, two Dominiques, a leghorn, and an Americauna),  a pair of Muscovy ducks, a pair of Embden geese, and three rabbits. 


We lost one goose and most recently my leghorn to predators- despite our best attempts to protect them. We replaced our goose Henry with a Chinese goose. However, Henry II since then has been respectfully culled, as we intended from the get go. (I will write another post on that later but basically we as a family would like to be closer to the process of how we obtain meat in order to be more conscious consumers).


But with planned and unplanned loss, unexpected life springs! Just this past week both my Muscovy duck hen and Americauna hen have gone broody!! While my duck, Strawberry, did not set sadly- my Americauna hen, Precious, has and seems to be a great Momma. 

Duck eggs

Our duck eggs, all 5, are in an incubator and we will candle them in another four days to see if they are developing. As for the 15 eggs Precious laid, she is happily taking care of them on her own. I hope she keeps it up too because we only have on incubator and the duck eggs have to be at a higher temperature. 




Needless to say it has been an exciting and exhausting week. I find it so so funny that Precious went broody first. Not only is she my youngest and smallest hen, but until now she had never laid an egg. Since it got cold, all my hens stopped laying so I just assumed she'd start in the spring- since she is much younger then my Dominiques. Well, I guess she was saving up. 


Now that I think back on her behavior this week and today it does make sense that she was broody. Not only did she have an egg waiting for me in her cage, but once I let her out she immediately went to the brush pile she loves and skipped her food! 


Imagine my surprise when I go out to get her tonight and find this there (when it was empty this morning)!! So here is hoping we get some chick and duckling in the next 20-35 days or so. I am excited and learning so much by all of this. Raising poultry sure is fun. 

Precious' eggs