Our ducklings hatched about a week ago, and it's safe to say we're absolutely in love with them. I was so excited to receive the hatching eggs in the mail. As silly as it seems, it felt impossible that ducks could grow inside of these tiny little eggs:
They hung out in this egg carton for a day before I placed them in the incubator. They'd traveled over 1,750 miles on their journey to our homestead, so they needed a while to settle in!
Once I placed them in the incubator, the countdown began. Duck eggs take around 28 days to hatch, so we had a whole month to wait before we could meet the babies. Let me tell you, that was torture! I'd been waiting to have ducks for so long; I just wanted it to happen already.
And then it did! Starting on day 27, we had ducklings preparing to hatch. Ducklings are notorious for taking forever to hatch--a full 48 hours is normal--so the waiting game continued. After what felt like an eternity, we finally got to see our first duckling.
I can't even tell you how excited I was to see a happy, healthy duckling in the incubator. There's something so wonderful about seeing a dream become reality. Over the next day or so, we had seven ducklings successfully hatch. I was happy with a 58% hatch rate for our first time incubating duck eggs.
As the ducklings dried off, we moved them into their brooder. We're keeping them in the bathtub of our spare bathroom because it's easy to clean and is big enough to fit all of our babies.
Even in their first week of life, the babies have grown SO much! Here's a baby at about a day old:
Look at that tiny beak and those cute little webbed feet. When they're this young, it's hard to believe they'll ever look like full-grown ducks. But even by a week old, they're starting to transform:
As you can see, the ducklings are already way bigger than they were when they first hatched. I know the next few weeks they'll continue to grow like crazy.
We haven't taken the ducklings outside quite yet, but we're hoping to do so this week. It just needs to warm up a bit here in northern Wyoming so the babies don't get cold! We're also hoping to let them have some brief swim time this week. Once they're fully feathered by about two months old, they'll be waterproof and living outside full-time.
Here's another cute picture of the ducklings just hanging out under their heat plate:
They love it when I feed them freshly-picked weeds from our property (and believe me, there are plenty of weeds). The first few days I had to rip the weeds into tiny pieces so the ducklings wouldn't choke on them. Ducks don't have teeth, so they need to be able to easily swallow everything they eat. However, now that they're getting bigger, they love it when I put the whole plant in their brooder for them to peck at.
Eventually, once the ducklings can live outside, they'll get to spend a lot of time free-ranging in our pastures. They'll snack on weeds and bugs, all the while fertilizing the land and helping it continually improve.
I love that animals are such an integral part of regenerative agriculture. Sure, we could make great progress with improving the soil fertility solely by growing plants, but correctly managing animals on the land significantly expedites the process. Just by allowing animals to live out their naturally-intended purpose--happily grazing on grass, hunting for small pests, and leaving their all-natural fertilizer behind--we can revive and restore our largely barren land into a flourishing habitat for flora and fauna. It turns out that when we let nature do what it's always done, ecosystems thrive.
I'm excited for this next phase of our homesteading and regenerative agriculture journey. We undoubtedly have so much to learn, and we've already made more mistakes than I'd care to admit. But that's the only way to grow, so we'll take note of each failure and adjust as necessary, always working towards a happier and healthier life for our land and livestock. I know the best is yet to come!
Awesome! Can't wait to see and hear more about your new babies! And the ranch too.