Skip to main content

Busy, Busy Busy!

Note: Ducklings will eat box elder bugs.  Apparently they do not know better..

We are over run with box elder bugs but not so much with ducks.  Out of the 5 expected, we have 2 living that hatched.  And wow, one of them had a journey!
Duckling #2 pipped wrong.  Ok; Pipping: Using their beak to make a hole in their shell to let in air.  Once that is done, then they rotate in their shell and start 'zipping' or opening the top of the shell counter-clockwise.   This little one pipped upside down and way too early.  So on Friday I started to help out but it was entirely too early to even try.  The membranes of eggs are lined with blood vessels.  As they mature out of their egg, these vessels dry up and the blood enters the ducklings through their yolk attached to their umbilical.

Now normally, the pipping is done close to hatching.  This ducky spent 3 days with his foot sticking out over his head in this opening of his shell.  It was tragically slow to watch. Finally, yesterday afternoon he showed that at least 90% of the blood vessels had reabsorbed and his umbilical/yolk area was decreasing. So I popped out his head and left the rest for this morning.  Now he's in the hatching recovery area working on gaining strength.  

A good tip for those hatching eggs: Cotton Swabs (Q-Tips) soaked in water held to their beaks for the first day is a good way to hydrate them.  They soak up enough water to get a move on.  

The 1st duck was fine, but pipped wrong also.  I don't know what it was with the first 5 and I do hope this does not go for the next oh....30 to be hatched.  The first duck has had time with me since there is no flock for him/her to hang with.  He's a speedy critter, and zips around the dining and front room scooping up dead box elder bugs and eating them. 
I have spent some time knitting, but not much. Right before the big hatch was settin' to start, I got a hideous cold.  For the last week, I've horked up a lung, wheezed around the yard, blown my nose about a trillion times and slept a lot.  Slowly, I am getting better, but it does not make this easy. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Summer!

Yes, Sissy's death has been a big blow to all of us. We miss her terribly. We suspect she became egg-bound, a condition that is most often fatal in poultry. She had not laid eggs this year and I knew she'd been shagged. There are a few things you can do, but you have to know that she's egg bound to start treatment. My laptop had been shutting down randomly, so I had Dave take it apart and blow out the fan. It's been sporadic since. I've been using Alex's laptop (he has a desktop also) but it's frustrating. His touchpad is extra touchy and if you rest your hand on it, well...the laptop does crazy things. We sold 2 of Molly's babies to a lady who lives near the Dells. She had bought 2 geese from someone and one died. Geese need a flock to survive, so I offered her two of Molly's babies. She said they are doing well and bonding with her gosling. It's good to have a flock of happy geese. There's a good video of what it's like to have ...
Post a Comment
Read more

1000th Feedback!!!

KIP Bags by Ruddawg has gotten their 1000th feedback! In honor of this momentous occasion, I am giving away a One of a Kind KIP Bag filled with goodies. The stuff? A sampling based on the idea "A Few of my Favorite Things." What are a few of my favorite things? Well, KIP bags, of course. This one is red velvet, 10" high by 7 1/2" wide. A red velvet wrist strap allows for knitting and walking at the same time. It has a decorator fabric bottom and fancy stitching at the top to give it a more festive look. What is in the bag? The top fuzzy item is a pair of socks. Not just socks, but a pair of those fuzzy and oh so soft socks. I am a fiend for socks! I ask for a new set of socks every year for my birthday. Next is a skein of Alpaca yarn - Caramel in color. I love, love LOVE alpaca! This skein is from Blue Sky Alpacas, 120 yards of Sport Weight Yarn. The red item is my most useful tool for knitting, sewing and everything else. It's a small swiss army knife that ...
20 comments
Read more

Ice Dragon

This pattern was in the Beadwork magazine in the Feb/Mar 2011 issue. It was so intriguing that I hunted down the issue and then got the beads to make the bangle. Mine is more of a bracelet, since the bead shop didn't have enough of the magatma beads to make it longer. It was my first ever attempt at making a beadwork bracelet. Oh sure, I flirted with a bead loom in my younger years, but only made a small thing. The pattern was well written and I managed to figure it out by myself. If you're wanting to do this for yourself, I would recommend getting out some plastic clay to seat the first row in while working on the 2nd row. It keeps things from moving around so you don't have to feel like you need 5 more hands to get it off the ground.
5 comments
Read more