The baby ducklings were born this past weekend, 5/10 – 5/11. We had to leave for Delaware in the morning, so we only saw the first four and didn’t really know how many of the 13 eggs would hatch. In fact, I was actually pretty worried that Dee Dee was sitting on too many eggs to be able to hatch them all and therefore thought that it might put them all at risk. Of course, nature knows better, and 10 of the 13 eventually hatched which was a pretty good yield. I guess Dee Dee knew what she was doing.

We kept her separate from Deuce (her boyfriend) and she managed just fine while we were away. Yesterday we moved Dee Dee and her babies into the nursery coop where they are relatively safe from snakes or other predators. They will stay there for several weeks until they are big enough to be safe from hungry snakes. We will probably move them back to the duck area to free up the nursery coop. We still want to breed some Marans this year.