COLDSTREAM – Should we call them dickens or maybe chucklings?
A hen on a Coldstream farm is now raising a broods of ducklings.
Val “Farmer Val” Buchanan says a woman who lives in the area found the duck eggs abandoned in a hay field.
“She heard them peeping so she knew they were alive inside the egg,” says Buchanan, “she panicked, brought them to Farmer Val. I had one lucky chicken sitting on the nest that afternoon so she was the only one that we stuck the eggs under her.”
Buchanan says the original plan was to put the ducks in a hatchery
However, the mother hen lived up to her name when Buchanan tried to take the ducklings away.
“When I put my hand in to try to take the ducks away the mother actually pecked at me and was attacking me,” says Buchanan, “literally it looked like she was shaking her head ‘stay away those are my babies.’”
Buchanan plans to release this brood at a pond on her property when they are old enough so they can learn from wild ducks.
“I’m happy that they can become a duck even though right now they are dickens, half duck half chicken, but they will become a duck. Their instincts are so strong they will want to stay a duck,” says Buchanan.
The hope is that they will be successful in the wild and the females will return to lay their own eggs in spring.
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