The Soggy Bottom Boys

(Click on the photos to see them supersized.)
There's one final tale of incubating drama at Newhouse Farm I have yet to tell, that of the Soggy Bottom Boys. I'm referring to the Indian Runner duck eggs that I'd placed in the incubator back in February, along with the goose eggs and maran hen eggs. First to hatch were 4 hen eggs, then on Mother's Day 7 and a half goslings burst forth from their shells. But no activity was to be seen from the pale blue duck eggs. No cracks, no muffled cheeps, no sign of life at all. It wasn't looking promising, and I convinced myself that all the ducklings must have perished in their shells, possibly due to a power cut we had half way through the incubating process.

Then finally, 3 days overdue, one of the duck eggs developed a little chip at the end, and within several hours I could see a tiny round tipped beak squeezing into the gap it had made. In the meantime a few other eggs had started to exhibit signs of imminent life. The ducklings were on their way! But whereas most of the goslings managed to force their way out of their shells pretty quickly, the process of arriving into the world didn't go so smoothly for the ducklings.

I found the chick and gosling hatchings traumatic enough, but this was the most difficult hatching process I've experienced so far which caused a lot of fretful watching and waiting. The troubles began when the first duckling seemed to get it's beak stuck in the hole it had made in its shell. We gave it a day to break free of its own accord, but after 24 hours we felt we must give it a helping hand. I knew how the odds are drastically against any newly hatched creature that has been helped out by a human, but I just couldn't sit by and watch the poor thing die with its beak stuck in its shell.

Eventually after several hours of carefully peeling away pieces of shell, I watched the duckling slide out of its shell and onto the floor of the incubator. It was slick and damp, about the size of a mouse and the same light brown colour. It didn't have the energy to open its eyes, let alone try to get up on its feet. I was fairly convinced that this weak creature wasn't going to make it, and I felt worried that by attempting to help it I'd actually caused it to perish.

A day later the duckling was still lying immobile on the floor of the incubator where it had hatched, the only sign of life was the gentle rise and fall of its side as it breathed. I knew that the duckling would have enough yolk in its belly to keep it alive for a couple of days before it needed to feed, but time was running out. It had to get up on its feet and start to feed soon or there was no way it would survive.

Then miraculously the following day the duckling actually managed to get into an upright position and open its eyes. But the poor thing was still in a sorry state: the leg it had been lying on wasn't working properly, and it was only able to stumble across the incubator. Yet in spite of this the tiny creature was fighting hard for its life, and I fed it some Rescue Remedy to give it a bit of fire in its belly and the strength to carry on.

By now the first duckling had been joined by 2 other new hatchees, yet these seemed to be struggling for life as well. One of the new ducklings was suffering from a terrible problem with its neck. It seemed as if the duckling, which was otherwise perfectly formed, had some kind of physical disability: its head would flop onto its back as if it didn't have the strength to hold it up properly, and then the creature would tip onto its back with its legs frantically paddling the air to try and right itself. After a while the duckling would manage to sit up normally, only for the whole rigmarole to start all over again a few moments later.

The outlook seemed very bleak for the ducklings, and I was sure death was near. But despite my pessimism Nature taught me a valuable lesson: these tiny ducklings desperately wanted to live, and their physical ailments only strengthened their fight to survive. A few days on and all 3 ducklings were alive and looking well. The first one to hatch had recovered the use of both its legs so much so that it was waddling around the interior of the barrel they'd moved into in the potting shed. And the neck problem with the other duckling had all but disappeared.

Now that several weeks have passed and I go to visit the ducklings in their pen outside, its almost impossible to believe how frail and vulnerable they once were. The 3 ducklings are full of energy and are growing rapidly, finding their balance as they totter along in the comical upright stance indicative of Indian Runner ducks. There is no sign of any physical problem or odd neck twitch, and now I cannot tell the 3 of them apart.

It was on one visit to the ducklings that I came to give them their nickname. We all know how much ducks love water, and the 3 ducklings were proving no different. Every time I'd visit them I'd discover that they'd managed to cause their water feeder to overflow, flooding the sawdust covered base of their pen. Even when I replaced the water feeder with another more robust one, the ducklings would still manage to get water everywhere, giving them perpetually soggy backsides. So one morning I called them the Soggy Bottom Boys, and the name has stuck like mud to a duckling's bum!

As a final note to this post, I just want to mention the emotional ups and downs of this new life in the country. I lived in London for 10 years, and developed a type of city survival instinct. I got accustomed to the aggressiveness of city living, developed a thick skin to rebuff all the rudeness, weirdos, and unsettling situations. But this city instinct serves absolutely no purpose in the countryside. Here I'm having to start afresh, and every new experience can feel overwhelming. I'm not accustomed to being surrounded by nature's cycles, and the immediacy of life and death as I've experienced with the goslings, chicks and ducklings. To be honest, its been an emotional rollercoaster, and there's been a number of occasions when my anxieties over their welfare has reduced me to tears. It's a steep learning curve to have made such a big lifestyle change, but when I see the goslings running after me with their wings outstretched or the ducklings pecking at my welly I know that all the upheavals have been worth it.