Recently our Cayuga duck hen and a Eastern Wild turkey hen hatched out their own clutches of eggs. We were especially excited about the duck babies because a few of our ducks have been killed recently by predators and also because we love duck babies but they are to messy to raise ourselves.
I made the mistake one morning of trying to hold one of her babies. I wouldn't recommend that anyone hold a baby duck that the mom has hatched, she doesn't like it, and she will come flying at you and try to bite you where ever she can.
The mom likes to take them up to the turkey house(which is the dog kennel now) because the babies can fit threw the chain link and eat the turkey food. Those baby ducks sit in the turkey house grazing on turkey pellet and drinking water all day long. They are very plump little duckies:)
We were successful enough to get the duck to lay and hatch her eggs in the duck house where she could be safe from predators, but the turkey on the other hand refused to make a nest anywhere near anyone or anything. She's already had a few nests this year that she had set up in random spots in the outskirts of the field, but the coyotes would always find her and her nest. She's actually the only hen we had survive since breeding season started. We had four hens that all started nests in random spots in the woods around the field and all but her were killed. She definitely worked hard to have these babies. When she disappeared we figured she had gone to make a new nest. She would be gone for days and we would just assume she had been eaten, but she always showed up at the same time of day to come and get some food and water, then she would leave. One day we went to fix the fence line by the neighbors house where the goats kept getting out and we found her on her nest. We were never sure when her eggs were going to hatch. One night we were letting Irie and Omie play in the field off leash together and Irie started jumping around in the middle of the field and he was really excited. So we went to see what he had found and it was the turkey hen and nine babies!! We took her and her babies up to the turkey house and now they live there with the two toms. However due to survival of the fittest she only has 5 babies. They are pretty cute though, you can tell which babies belong to which tom.
I will get some more updated pictures of the babies since these were taken right after they were born.
The turkey hen is a hard one to follow though.When we let her and her babies out in the morning she takes them around and teaches them how to eat our vegetables and dust bathe in the middle of our garden beds and then they go off into the field where the grass is 3' tall where they can't be seen. Her babies always give up their location though. They have to peep really loud so mom can hear them which we can also hear and figure out where they are. She likes to take them out there to eat the moths and other bugs and seeds in the grass. However once she is out there she doesn't come home at night. We have to go out there way before it gets dark and track the peeping and find her and wrangle them all back. She ends up sitting on the babies once it gets so dark and then you can't see her head poking around. She's pretty funny too, she hears us calling for her and she will look up to see where we are then she'll crouch back down and hide and pretend like we didn't see her. One thing we learned about turkey babies and their moms: their moms are really defensive once she has decided to sit on them for the night, so if you find her and she's already hunkered down for the evening I would not recommend reaching down under her to pick up the babies. Don't even touch her in anyway with your hand. You get a stick or use your foot to poke her to get her to move otherwise your askin for trouble.
