Those Naughty Dirty, Dirty, Divas.....And Everything You Wanted To Know About Duck Eggs...

Or you can call this post "Yes, we have NO bananas". (If you have read the book 'Eat, Pray, Love' it just made that banana reference even funnier. Sorry, I'm in a good mood and thus my warped sense of humor shines through)

There is not a drake one in our flock. That is, not unless he does a VERY good job of female impersonation. No one has a darker head. No one has any curved tail feathers. No one has anything characteristic of a boy duckie. They all look just alike, even the one that sounds a little different. I know what you are thinking...but the pool surfing and the weird egg thing.....Yes, let me tell you what I have learned!!!!!

Over at The New Agrarian under the section of Raising Ducks: 4 - 5 months They reported this from their female duck experience....."More new behavior: when the ducks get into the pool first thing each morning, they hump each other. It seems to be the same ducks every day, but it doesn’t correspond to what we thought was the pecking order. It began just after we found the first eggs, and the ducks we believed to be laying first were the ones being humped, so our best guess is that the ducks who were less sexually mature were a bit confused by the new hormones in the flock. But the morning ritual continues now that everyone is laying, and so we really have no idea what is going on."

Humping....surfing....po-ta-to...po-tat-o. :) Apparently this is something that girly ducks do. They are ornery like that, you know. Why do they do it? I have no clue. Maybe I'll become the Duck Whisperer and we'll find out. Or maybe you are a Duck Whisperer and you can tell me?!?!?!

Eggs....Consider this your crash course on duck eggs. While I didn't get to see the egg that my hubby's friend thought was fertilized, I have seen two from ours that I think may be what they saw. Mink Hollow Farm has a great page about duck eggs. There I learned about Meat Spots.....

This is a meat spot. (Photos courtesy of Mink Hollow Farm)

This is a Meat Spot visible through candling.

So what is a meat spot? Mink Hollow Farm says that "Meat spots, while unappetising, are generally considered to be harmless. They are thought to be what's left of some tissue that has been sloughed off during or shortly after the yolk was released into the oviduct. The most likely explanation is that the meat spot is a piece of the follicle that once held a yolk. Sometimes a bit tears off. Another possibility is that a follicle that is no longer functional breaks down and 'falls off' from the ovary.Eggs containing meat spots are generally considered unsuitable for hatching. The meat spot can usually be easily removed."

So the presence of a Meat Spot does not mean an egg is fertile. I have begun candling all of our eggs to spot anything unusual and I have had two that contained a meat spot. I suspect this is what hubby's friend saw too.

Next egg fact...the Chalazae. Go here to hear that word spoken. I did, but I still can't say it right! The Chalazae is the white cloudy looking stuff. See it? Bottom left? Sometimes it looks like a tiny squiggly pig tail or a teeny tiny umbilical cord, which it pretty much is, and anchors the yolk. It is a normal part of an INFERTILE egg. It is perfectly natural and normal. It's presence also means your eggs are FRESH. As the egg ages, the Chalazae shrinks and becomes less noticeable. So they are really noticible in our eggs!

And the next egg one...you can almost barely see it in the picture above (top center of the yolk, not the bright camera flash spot on the bottom right) but our duck eggs tend to have a tiny noticeable light dot on the yolk. This is called the True Egg. For an egg to become fertile, it must be present, but it's presence does not indicate an egg is fertile. It is just a normal part of an egg and means it is a good egg.

Last but not least, the shells are thicker than a chicken egg shell, so you have to make sure you give them a good hard bonk on the side of your cast iron skillet.

So, there you have it. No boy ducks and lots of crazy egg info! I'm sure I have left something out that you are dying to know, so any questions? Ask away! :)

Oh, The Busy Life and Being Sick Do Not Mesh Well!!

The sun is shining today! That is a good thing. I have been fighting off the crud and now I have some weird thing going that I initially thought was my gallbladder but now I am thinking it is Costochondritis - which is an inflammation of the rib cartilage, probably related to the crud and coughing.

Yes, I SHOULD go to the Dr but, argh, I just don't want to! Stubborn and silly, I know. My husband told me to quit acting like I am 10 years old. :) LOL And I am the QUEEN of self diagnosis. Not that I am always right, you remember the recent ER trip that I thought was a massive heart attack that ended up being anxiety? Other than THAT one, I am usually right. And God love the Internet for self diagnosing! :) And I am such a total 'wait and see' type too. And then there is the long sordid story of insurance and everything where we live being out of area, having to drive two hours to get anything covered, blah blah blah blah blah. I am just not in the mood! I have things to do!

Thursday my sister is being induced to have the twin babies. Hooray!! :) Thank goodness I am off Thursday!!!!

This week and weekend is booked up with school home coming festivities - the parade, the football game, every day is a different theme for spirit week, and the homecoming dance Saturday which my oldest daughter is going to. My youngest daughter is on the dance team for the half-time show so she has practice this week.

Then the next weekend is my oldest daughter's sweet 16 party which I am in the process of planning.

I am trying to keep up! :)

Today I have been taking the time to go sit in the sun for 10 or 15 minutes at a time. All the latest research is talking about vitamin D deficiency and the impact it can have. And really, I DO feel better! I think there is something to that. Most of my "spare" time lately has been spent napping since I have been sick...the sun is doing me some good.

Oh, and my hubby is laid off this week. He was off last week too, but will be back to work next week! :) But since he has been around he is a lot of help and has saved the day with me not feeling well. He's a wonderful man.

We have been getting between 10 - 14 duck eggs per day. I have been giving a lot away, and I think I am going to try selling them. The guineas are great too...they love life in their new coop and they are getting so big!!

Alrighty, I am signing off for now. Back to your own busy life you go now! :) Thanks for stopping in and I am wishing you peace and happiness and HEALTH! :)

Ladies & Gentlemen...I Think We May Have An Impostor Among Us...

Well, an impostor among the Dirty Divas, that is. I think one may very well be...A BOY! Well, a drake, technically, but a boy nonetheless. What makes me think this? Two things. Three actually. Wait, four.

Number one....remember this post about our first eggs when I said we noticed some odd duck behavior in the pool? One duck was surfing on another's back and hanging on to it's neck feathers with its beak? Faith from over at Lemonade Adventures commented and said that she thought it was mating behavior. At the time I thought it was funny, because they are all girls! Right? RIGHT? I'm not so sure now!

So...number two. We had this one egg that we found in their play yard instead of in the coop. It was different than the others. It was darker, kind of splotchy looking. I thought maybe since it sat outside for who knows how long it was just a bad egg. Since we are new to this whole duck and egg thing, I marked it with a black X with the intention of looking into it further. However, I went ahead and put it in a carton with other eggs until I could get back to it, because you know I am a busy mom and all, and my husband gave that dozen to a friend of his! Which was lovely, but then he found out that when they cracked that egg with the X there was an embryo in it! Or so that is what they think it was. Since I didn't get to see it, and probably wouldn't know what I was looking at if I had, I have no clue if that is what it really was. Man, I wish I could have seen it!

Number three...there is one duck that does not sound the same as the others. It never has. I never gave it much thought...until now!

Number four...we ordered a straight run of 15 Khaki Campbell female chicks and they threw in an extra chick, as hatcheries tend to do, so perhaps number sixteen IS a boy?

So my suspicions are heightened and I have a lot of observation to do to get to the bottom of this foul mystery!

Can you spot the fake...I mean Drake?

Me neither. But I'll keep you updated on this investigation!!! Oh and one more thing, if there is a boy, I will be absolutely thrilled! I had planned on getting a couple this spring! :)

I Was Just Thinking I Should Update You About My Pregnant-With-Twins-Sister...

Remember me asking for prayers because she went into preterm labor and had to be in the hospital on bed rest? Well, after that she went home on bed rest. Then after that she made it far enough along that the babies were out of danger they let her off bed rest! And now.....

SHE IS STILL PREGNANT!!!! One more week and they are actually going to INDUCE her!

The happy couple....isn't she absolutely gorgeous? :)

Daddy's hands.....(and her crazy outie!)

Yeah, go ahead and kiss now you two...

....because you are going to be way too busy to kiss after those two babies get here! :) LOL

I just think it is amazing that she went into preterm and we were so worried and here she is pretty much full term! :) Thank you all for the prayers...PRAYER WORKS! :)

The Guinea's New Coop.....

My most awesome husband built the Guinea's First Home! THANK YOU SWEETHEART!!!!Everything used to make it was re-purposed stuff we had around.

They aren't quite sure that to make of it all yet! So far (the whole 20 minutes they have been out there!) they spend their time in the corner on a pile of pine shavings....I think because that is what they were used to on the floor of their brooder.

But we ushered them out and they seemed to enjoy it! Just still too new to them...you know, like the first time you let your baby touch grass and they give you that adorable yet confused "WHAT?!?!" look? It's like that.

Their food and water are inside the coop. We also have sticks strategically placed inside and out for them to roost on. That was the signal they were ready to be out of the house...every time we turned around one was up on the edge of the brooder! A time or two they'd make it to the floor and nose around chirping loudly until we put them back in with the flock. Amazingly enough I have both a cat and a dog in the house and neither one bothered or ate the Guineas.

I think I am officially a Poultry Enthusiast. :) I've got big plans for these fellas and plans in the works for some more birds. Like Silkies. Instead of the old lady with a billion cats...I'll be the old lady with chickens everywhere. :) LOL

Three and a Half Eggs.......

My son went out to collect duck eggs this evening. He's how it went....

Him - Mom, guess how many eggs I found?

Me - How many?

Him - Three and a half!

Me - Huh? Was one broken?

Nope, just tiny! It is adorable! Do we have a tiny duck hiding out there amongst the Dirty Divas?

And he is way excited to eat that tiny egg for breakfast tomorrow! :) I still haven't had a chance to eat a duck egg, maybe tomorrow morning, but my son has and he loves them! He said they are way better than a chicken egg. That made me smile! :)

Much more to update about my follow up trip to the Dr today and the Guineas. But for now I am hitting the tub with some lavender Epsom salt and then heading to bed. Big hugs to all of you and I wish you a peaceful night!

An Emergency Room Trip at 3:00am.....

Short version: About 3am Saturday morning I thought I was dying.

Longer version: I woke up around 3ish to go potty, as usual. But on the way to the bathroom I noticed my abdomen hurt a little. By the time I was on the way back to bed, it hurt a lot. Then the left side of my chest hurt. Then the next thing I knew my heart was racing out of control. Really, I didn't know a heart could beat THAT fast. I thought my heart was going to explode. And about that time as I was waking up my husband to tell him I don't feel right at all, this strange burning sensation was overcoming my body, and when it hit the back of my neck and then back of my head and my heart was racing and chest was hurting I told my husband to call 911, that I thought I was dying.

This is the scariest thing I have ever been through.

So the ambulance comes. Slowly, because we are rural, and might I add that they turned into our drive and then pulled back out and then my hubby chased them down the highway and brought them back. He's such a good hubby, bless HIS heart, I scared the crap out of him. We really need to make our address HUGE on our mailbox. If I wasn't already dying, the trip down our front porch stairs on the stretcher was about enough to kill me! It was like a roller coaster ride, which I do not do. But while I was waiting for the ambulance I was shaking all over uncontrollably, but my heart rate was slowing, which I was not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing so I laid on the bed in one position, scared to death to move. My hubby had to put some jammie pants on me because I had went to bed in a tshirt and undies. I have also been really run down the last week or so - taking a lot of naps and going to bed early. I thought I was fighting off a bug so I didn't give it too much thought...UNTIL all of the sudden this was going on - then I was sure it was because something was terribly wrong with me.

So in the ambulance they are trying to get an IV in, which they could not, and they hooked me up and monitored me. The paramedic told me I had the most beautiful sinus rhythm he had seen in a long time. I blushed.

At the hospital they ran a bazillion tests. All tests came back negative. My heart is fine. My electrolytes and all that jazz are fine. My blood is all fine. My chest x-ray was fine. My thyroid was even fine. They kept referring to my test results and "Perfect" and "Beautiful". Which made me think...are they normal because I am crazy?!?!?

So I have to see the Dr on Monday. The ER doc suspects a massive ANXIETY attack, which I misinterpreted as a massive HEART attack. And the more I research nocturnal anxiety attacks, the more sense it makes. I have had some issues with anxiety before, but nothing compared to the magnitude of this experience. I really hope to never go through that again! So my suspicion this far is that perhaps I was either in the process of an anxiety attack when I woke up and it escalated. Or in my sleepy stupor I had an anxiety attack in response to the abdominal pain I was having. I don't really know.

So I spent yesterday resting and taking it easy. I still had a little bit of abdominal pain off and on. Last night I slept in a chair because the thought of sleeping in my bed was just not appealing at all. When I woke up for the usual bathroom trip at 3am last night, I was wide awake and nervous just thinking about the night before. I did a lot of deep breathing to get me through last night. I'll see the Dr tomorrow after work and go from there.

So there it is. Anyone have anxiety issues? Nocturnal anxiety attacks? I could really use some "You are not crazy" hugs right now! While I am thrilled there is nothing wrong with me, something IS wrong with me. Know what I mean? Ugh.

Some Very Egg-citing News!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Dirty Divas have laid their first eggs! These three were in their house today. They laid them on the floor...not an egg one in the nest boxes.

How many ducks can you fit in a kiddy pool? Sixteen!

We also noticed some interesting duck behavior today...when they were all in the pool one was standing on another one's back and holding onto it's neck feathers with it's beak! Some kind of odd duck surfing? :) These are the three duck eggs on the right and a regular store bought chicken egg on the left. Only fitting that the Dirty Divas lay dirty eggs! :) LOL

And last but certainly not least...the Guineas! Aren't they cute? I should have taken pictures last week...they have more than doubled in size and are getting feathers already! Orschlen had chick days going on last week so I came home with eight of these babies. We lost one to a nasty case of what I think was pasty butt - we tried to save him but it didn't work - luckily they replaced him so we still have 8. We got three Pearls, three Royal Purple, and two Lavender.

They are talkative little fellas! One of the first things I noticed is that they chirp non-stop when they are awake.

A tiny little pumpkin update...the squash bugs got the main vines, but not until after we had harvested a lot. The neat thing is that on the back side of our house in the pasture we have volunteer pumpkin vines growing from pumpkins we tossed out there last year! So this means we WILL have more pumpkins for Halloween! There are a lot on the vines and not one squash bug in sight. I hope those dirty beggars stay away!