Went out the door this morning, and got greeted by our usual gang of ducks, along with 5 little peepers! Kind of late. Glad it's fairly warm still and hope it stays that way for a while. The mortality rate for ducklings is pretty high around here. Still I hope the little guys hang around for a while! Last batch, we ended up with 2 out of 8. Any of the rest of you have poultry hatching out this late? Or does it matter, for those of you who live in the warmer parts of the world?

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), October 17, 2000

Answers

I have a Mascovy sitting on about a dozen eggs in the garage. Didn't note when she started to sit, but seems a long time. May not hatch. As long as the hens (or whatever female ducks are called) keeps the ducklings around the house they do OK. As soon as she takes them down to the pond they disappear quickly. Don't really know why.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), October 17, 2000.

I had a mixed breed hen that would sit on anything at anytime. I think she would have tried to hatch hail stones! Maybe the seasons don't matter to certain individuals. Ken,as for the ducklings not lasting long at the pond, do you have snapping turtles? We had a big problem with them drowning and eating the ducklings. Also tore the webs on the adults feet. Ridding the pond of them became a game for us as children. We would sit by the pond with the 20 gauge and wait for one of those big old heads to pop up and shoot it. Killed several large ones. Solved the problem for several years. There are some big ones in there again, but the ducks are all gone.

-- Terri Perry (stuperry@stargate.net), October 18, 2000.

I have to second the previous fellow. If your ducks have access to a pond I would suspect snapping turtles are getting your ducklings. We had a large lake behind our house and for about 3 years wild wood ducks would migrate there and try to raise young. It was so exciting to see when they finally hatched. And so heartbreaking as we saw the ducklings disappear in a couple of days due to the turtles.

-- Amanda (aseley@townsqr.com), October 18, 2000.

We don't have snapping turtles here, but cats, owls, and hawks seem to take a toll on our little ones. Yuck....can't imagine snapping turtles! The only turtles I ever see are snoozing on a log in Lake Washington (and not that often) or else I remember those painted ones (awful thing to do to a living creature) that we got at fairs when I was a kid. Isn't amazing how entirely different each geographic region of the country is? Such a huge area of land!!!

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), October 18, 2000.

I had a banty hen hatch chicks last year on December 27! They all did fine, too.

-- Shannon (Grateful Acres Animal Sanctuary) (gratacres@aol.com), October 18, 2000.

My neighbor's son pops turtles with a .22. I've also heard large bass will eat ducklings. Same guy I pay $20 to for each beaver he kills.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), October 18, 2000.

Neighbors of ours used to lose their ducklings to the big bullheads in their pond. We do have turtles around here, but they didn't think there were any in the pond, and they saw the bullheads taking the ducklings.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), October 18, 2000.

Loons love baby ducks and you never see them chasing them as they are great underwater swimmers. However, Loons are not the best flyers and need quite a lot of water for take offs and landings, so, they prefer to live on larger, longer bodies of water. Maureen

-- Maureen Stevenson (maureen@mtaonline.net), October 21, 2000.

Down to one duckling as of this morning. :{ I suspect crows this time.

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), October 21, 2000.

Our geese hatched three little ones this week. Doing chores has become interesting as they are very protective.

-- Barb Fischer (bfischer42@hotmail.com), October 21, 2000.