#countryliving #tasmania - learning about ducks

#countryliving #tasmania - learning about ducks - our story

We got a few ducks from friends recently and have been learning about them for 2 or 3 months now. The first problem we came across (remember we knew nothing about ducks) was our friends had given us 3 drakes and 1 female. I soon read up on the fact a drake needs 4-6 females as they are pretty rough on them once the hormones kick in.

So we sourced 3 females and when they turned up, having chosen them from photos, it was obvious the two little call ducks are far too small for the drakes who are campbells cross and twice the size of the little ones. As spring was kicking in here this past two weeks I noticed the boys were squabbling amongst themselves and quite aggressively.

So .... we created a bachelor pen and moved the 3 drakes out. My thinking is i also dont want a gazillion ducks where a lot of them might be drakes. After a short time of settling in we started to find 2 eggs a day - one dropped on the ground each morning and another under a plant where a nest was formed. so sweet.

We have a campbells cross (Daisy), 2 call ducks (Mini and Chelsea) -(possibly a cross also as their eggs are chicken size) and an indian runner (Florence)

Today ... new problem ... a good problem to have however i would like to solve the puzzle. if anyone out there 'knows things' please let me know what is going on.

after a few days of not finding any eggs (we were finding 1 or 2 a day) we discovered a 'secret' nest and 21 eggs!

Now ... that was found at 4pm yesterday (Saturday) ... today (Sunday) at 10am i found 9 more eggs !! we only have 4 ducks. We definitely cleaned out the nest yesterday - no question.

can anyone out there tell me what might be going on ?

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