Jump Day 2016

Today is the day they leave the nest.  Experts say between 6 and 9:00 am.  Our ducklings ended up leaving at 10:00, so the kids and I had 4 hours of anxiously watching "duck tv" this morning.

We had been wondering how these little ones would get out from the bottom of the nest box.  It's about a 12" climb to the exit.  Surprisingly (at least to us), they wedge their little webbed feet into the grooves on the wall and scale it like experts.  Well, they practiced a lot first.

In the end, 18 of the 19 eggs hatched.  17 of the 18 left the nest on their own and the last little one just could. not. make. it.   I was watching from outside.  After mama and her babies swam away, I went to go check the nest to see how many eggs had hatched and was surprised to find one still struggling inside.  Normally I wouldn't hold one of the wild ducklings, but mama was getting further and further away.  Last year, the mama duck swam away and immediately left the pond, so I didn't want to take any chances.  I pulled little Peep out and (after a quick photo) released him into the pond.   He loudly peeped and peeped while swimming away.  Eventually Fancy heard him and came back to get him.

Enjoy these super cute videos of the little ones learning to climb, then eventually following Fancy out.  (Once she left, they climbed out so fast we couldn't believe it! )  Still photos of what happened outside the box.  Until next year...

Practicing climbing with mama's help.

Jump!

Quick clip view from the outside (1).

Quick clip view from the outside (2).

The welcoming committee:  Fancy waits for her ducklings
to join her in the water, along with another mama duck and her
older/bigger ducklings.  How sweet!

Peep.  I rescued him from inside the nest.  He could NOT get
out on his own. Really, I wanted to keep him!  But, I let him go.

Peep reuniting with his mama in the pond.  He peeped
and peeped until she heard him and came to get him.

Together at last. 

Cuteness overload.

Baby ducklings have to be one of the cutest baby animals out there.  Maybe even cuter than puppies.
I want to go out and grab a duckling to hold so badly (but I won't....)!

Here are a few more videos to end hatch day. (Note: If the videos won't play, switch your browser to Chrome - this seems to work better.)

Ducklings napping.  Once the kids fell asleep,

Fancy left the nest for a quick swim and some dinner.

Ducklings waking up from their nap.  The first one

awake quickly wakes up the rest of the crew and soon

their is a duckling mosh pit.  Adorable.

Mama duck is back in her nest for the night, trying

to contain her brood.  

They are hatching!

The little wood ducklings started hatching this morning.

Fancy has been very loud for the last 24 hours.  For weeks she has been relatively quite - just sitting on her eggs all day long, save for a few quick breaks to swim and eat.  But starting yesterday, she has been moving around a lot and constantly making clucking noises.  I think she was talking to her eggs.  I know from past experience with the mallard eggs we incubated, that you can hear them peeping from inside their shells.  I'm sure she heard it too!

This is a still shot from our camera.  It's using night

vision, so the color is blue.  The two eggs in the center 

with the black spots are pipping. 

We first noticed a few eggs "pipping" (term for the very beginnings of hatching) around 7:30 when Fancy went out for breakfast.  Shortly after that she returned so we had a harder time seeing what was going on.  Not too long later, we saw a couple of tiny ducks peaking out from under mama!  And now they are just multiplying like crazy.  There were 19 eggs, so if most of them hatch it will be a very crowded nest!  

Enjoy these videos, taken during different stages this morning.  I'll update again later when they are done hatching.

And believe it or not, they will ALL leave the nest for good tomorrow morning! I can't miss that...

This first video shows a cute little face in the top 

left corner.  Be sure to turn up your sound!

Here you can clearly see the first two ducklings.

  Fancy is trying to keep them tucked under her, 

but they don't seem to agree. You can also see Fancy

moving around the empty shells.

In this clip there are way more ducklings! And if you

look closely under mama duck on the right, you can see 

one coming out of it's shell (more in the next video).

More of the little one coming out of it's shell.

You can see Fancy helping him out. 

So much cuteness!  And they aren't even all hatched!

Check back later, and I'll post more when there is more to see! 

Waiting game

This is how Fancy spends her days now.   Leaving only for less than 30 minutes at a time to eat.   Peacefully sitting or sleeping on 19 eggs (many of them belonging to the other Hen). No matter.  Fancy will mother them all.  Not much to show these days... We expect hatching the 3rd week in June. If anything interesting happens before then, I'll let you know. 

 🐣. 

A view of the ruckus from outside the nest.

It has become apparent that these duck fights will continue every day until both are done laying.

Fancy (the one with the "fancy" head) spends much more time in the nest than Bella (I had to name her something to keep them straight. Bella means 'beauty' in Italian and Latin - and really, both ducks are very pretty ladies.)  So the nest is Fancy's and Bella is the daily intruder - but, she really needs a place for her babies, too!  So we give her a pass and wish we could tell her that there will be more nest boxes available next year.

At any rate - the squabbles continue each morning.  Today, I decided to capture the view of what the duck fight looks like from outside the house.   As you can see, the nest is really rocking! If you listen closely, you can hear them squawking and banging around inside the nest.  At the end of the video, one of the ducks flies out.

Below the video is a picture of the waiting line to get inside.  Fancy does NOT like this and gets really agitated when Bella is sitting on top waiting to get inside.

Soon they will be done laying - each hen can lay around a dozen eggs.   Once they are done one of them will sit almost full time on the eggs and then the 30 day countdown to hatching will begin again!

A view of the ruckus from outside the nest.

It has become apparent that these duck fights will continue every day until both are done laying.

Fancy (the one with the "fancy" head) spends much more time in the nest than Bella (I had to name her something to keep them straight. Bella means 'beauty' in Italian and Latin - and really, both ducks are very pretty ladies.)  So the nest is Fancy's and Bella is the daily intruder - but, she really needs a place for her babies, too!  So we give her a pass and wish we could tell her that there will be more nest boxes available next year.

At any rate - the squabbles continue each morning.  Today, I decided to capture the view of what the duck fight looks like from outside the house.   As you can see, the nest is really rocking! If you listen closely, you can hear them squawking and banging around inside the nest.  At the end of the video, one of the ducks flies out.

Below the video is a picture of the waiting line to get inside.  Fancy does NOT like this and gets really agitated when Bella is sitting on top waiting to get inside.

Soon they will be done laying - each hen can lay around a dozen eggs.   Once they are done one of them will sit almost full time on the eggs and then the 30 day countdown to hatching will begin again!

Monster Cookies!

My new favorite recipe for a healthy snack.  

Tastes like a cookie, but filled with better ingredients. 

Mostly. Don't count the M&M's.  

Since our daughter is dairy free, so is this recipe.  It's also really easy to make this one gluten free if you so choose.  (Variation included below.)  And, because I think that if you are going to take the worthy effort to bake, you should always make extra - I would suggest one of the following:

- Make up an extra baggie or two of the dry ingredients.  Print up the recipe and put it inside the baggie.  Next time you are craving home baked goodness you are already partway done!

- Make up an entire addtional batch, but don't bake them.  Instead, place the unbaked monster cookies on a wax paper lined baking sheet.  No need for spacing - just pack them on there.  Freeze them until solidly frozen.  Pop them off and into a freezer bag.  Now you can easily bake one at time - or the whole batch - with total ease!  You'll be so glad you planned ahead.  

Yum. 

Wet ingredients

•   2 Eggs OR 1 egg and ½ cup applesauce
•   1/2 cup Peanut butter, creamy

•   1 tsp Vanilla extract

•   1 T. coconut oil, melted

•   1/2 cup almond milk (or regular milk if you choose).

Dry ingredients
•   2 cups Oats
•   1 T. Baking powder
•   1/4 cup Brown sugar, light
•   1/4 cup white sugar
•   ½ bag Chocolate chips*
•   ½ bag M&M’s (optional – leave off for DF)
•   1/4 tsp Salt
•   1 1/2 cup whole wheat or gluten-free flour

*DF Chocolate Chips are available made by Enjoy Life (I bought mine at Target) http://enjoylifefoods.com/our-food/baking-chocolate/chocolate-for-baking-dark-chocolate-morsels/ or Trader Joes semi-sweet chocolate chips are also DF!

Directions

Mix dry ingredients together in one bowl and wet ingredients in another.

Combine.  If the mix is too dry to hold together in a cookie shape, add more almond milk (or milk) until it does. 
Scoop onto cookie sheet with the ¼ cup scoop.
Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes. 

Note: If you can't help but eat the dough - go ahead if you used the applesauce instead of eggs! :-)