Who's my mummy?

I imagine these Indian Runner ducklings will have turbulent teenage years.

It won’t be easy coming to terms with being a duck whose mum was a chook. But I hope they’ll be tough, and survive the taunts.

We put the duck eggs under a broody Rhode Island Red, and she sat very patiently for 28 days, until the babies pushed their way out of the thick, white shells.

To reduce the psychological strain on the ducklings we took them away from the chook, and now they’re in a cosy pen with a light and lots of crumble and water.

Like the pigs, the ducklings had an exciting windy weekend. Their light went out with the electricity, but they did a good job of keeping each other warm for a few hours.

Inside the house, where we’ve got an electric incubator set with 40 eggs, the power cut caused a little more stress.

The temperature dropped incredibly quickly, a duck-expert relative was called, and then a doona was wrapped around the incubator. We warmed some water on the metho burner and filled a hotwater bottle and tucked that in too.

But the temperature continued to fall…

The chamber got moved to the lounge room in front of the fire, and slowly the thermometer started moving upwards.

But then it got too hot and exploded, spreading purple alcohol over the eggs!

I had band practice in town in the afternoon, so along with the tenor horn on the back seat we sat the incubator.

After a couple of hours being plugged-in at the band rooms, with the eggs turning to the music of Edward Gregson’s The Plantagenets, the power came back on at home.

We shone a torch into the eggs last night, and actually saw a duckling move inside its shell, so hopefully they’ll be alright.