Current Duckie Status

It's been an interesting few days. We were up to ten ducks. Then down to 9. Then we lost another one. :-( Perhaps being passed around to various kids that afternoon did him in. Or perhaps he was one of our incubator ducks...that didn't quite make it. We don't know, but it was quite sad. :-(
So then we were back down to 8 again. And those 8 sure are growing!!!! They are getting so big. Well, another day, not too long ago (can't remember exact days at the moment), one of our "inside eggs" hatched! Yippee. He was so sweet! I tried to take him out to the big ducks but he wanted to crawl around on my hands, arms, legs, lap, etc. Very sweet. It broke my heart to put him back with the other ducks. I wish we hadn't. He didn't make it. They got him. Looks like the bigger ducks did him in. :-( Very sad. I don't like those big ducks picking on my babies!!!

SO - new approach! After those 8 have been doing quite well, it looks like the mamma ducks really don't care about the rest of their eggs. They aren't sitting on them as much, so we took them in. ONE ALREADY HATCHED!! That was fast! Typically, we hear the squeaking egg and the next day, a duckie arrives. Well this one only took an hour or two to push on through that shell.
We are NOT putting him out with the other ducks!! No way. We found a website that has some duckling tips, so we are going to try to keep him inside with us. :-) We've still got a bunch of eggs in the incubator, so we may still get a few more inside ducks. Of course we aren't going to let them roam the house or anything! Hopefully, our inside babies will last better with us. We don't have a very good track record at this point. Keeping our fingers crossed!