We have a Baby!!  Yes, against all odds we have a baby duckie!  We haven’t had much luck with the duckie breeding program because of gender issues (this is true, by the way, the male duck paired up with a male goose and wouldn’t have anything to do with the female ducks).   Anyway, we have a new drake on the block that is satisfying the harem of ducks.  However, none of the ducks wanted to set so Gnome made an incubator.

We put 12 eggs in the incubator (Gnome-rigged, of course with temperature control) last month and eagerly waited.  Gnome candled them at the beginning and all of them seemed to be viable.  Towards the end of the incubation period (takes 28 days to hatch), disaster struck when we realised that the cat had been jumping on top of the incubator because it was such a comfy warm spot, causing the temperature to fluctuate, subsequently spoiling the eggs.  We were so disappointed and gave up on the project as an “act of cat.”  However, there was one egg we had put in 5 days later than the rest which was due to hatch today…we woke up this morning to:

“…peep….peep…peep.”

Yes, we have one lone duckie!  Awwwhhhh….soooooo cute….

Another baby picture:

We have set up an emergency brooding area in a fish tank with a 100 watt lamp to keep it warm.  He’s just had his first feed and seems to be doing okay!  A bit lonely but we are keeping it company…