A New Mom!

As I have seen, new moms love to share all of the joys they experience as they are raising their new treasures. Blogging is such a wonderful way to share these wonderful times with so many family and friends at the same time.

I too am about to be a new mom - of 14! That's right, sometime this week, 14 baby ducks will be delivered to me and I will have the pleasure of raising these little darlings until they are big enough to go to the farm.

My parents and I have raised baby geese and/or baby ducks for as long as I can remember. They are so much more affectionate than people expect, geese especially. They do something that is called imprinting, where the first being they see, they believe is their mother. So even though my skin looks nothing like the fuzz on their bodies, they will truly believe I am their mother. They follow you just as they would follow their real mother around.

I have ordered these little darlings from McMurray Hatchery, http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/index.html in Iowa. When ordering ducks, you must order at least 10 so that they will have body heat, and cushion, while being shipped. I know all of this sounds very cruel, but it really isn't! When ducks hatch, they have nutrients to get them through a day or two without having more. In the wild, this is so that all of the other eggs can hatch before mother duck has to get them to the water. In all of our years of ordering ducks, they have all made it just fine!

I have ordered a wide variety of ducks:
1 Buff
3 Indian Runners (3 different colors)
2 White Crested (they have little hats!)
2 Cayugas (black/green)
1 Blue Swedish
1 Khaki Campell
4 Female Mallards

Now is the anxious time... I feel like a new mother, not knowing when they will arrive! They are scheduled to arrive Tuesday-Friday of this coming week! I will just be waiting for a phone call from the post office early one morning to let me know that the little ones have arrived!