The Tale of the Jumping Ducklings 🦆 🐣

A little duck has disappeared on Foggy Oak Farm! Where could she be...and why are there ducklings jumping from the hayloft in the barn?! 

Learn about the magic of duck mothers and the amazing things brand new ducklings can do in this week's episode!

New intro

Transcript

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♪ Foggy Oak Farm ♪♪ Foggy Oak Farm ♪♪ Come on down to ♪♪ Foggy Oak Farm ♪- Hi friends. Welcome to Foggy Oak Fairy Tales. Each week, we'll bring you a new story. Some weeks, we'll share a story based on what's been happening on our real-life Foggy Oak Farm, where we have all sorts of animals and adventures. Other weeks, we'll use our imaginations and create new adventures together. I'm so glad you're here. This week, we have the tale of the jumping ducklings, based on our experiences with a clutch of hatching ducklings on the farm. Once upon the farm, our family had brought home nine ducklings to join our existing flock of ducks. These ducklings were called muscovies, and when they are grown, they are about the size of a goose, so they're not very duck-like at all, really. But they're calm, sweet birds that come in many colors, and they are excellent at bug control. They roam the pastures to eat undesirable insects like ticks. We raised the nine ducklings in a pen in the yard, keeping them warm and safe at night under a heating lamp. And as they grew larger, we gradually let them range across the yard to learn how to hunt insects for themselves. They grew with us from the size of a bar of soap to large healthy adult ducks over the course of the summer and fall. Through winter, they continue to grow with our flock, and by the next spring, we began to wonder if any of the hens, that's the word for a female muscovie or a female duck, would decide to hatch babies of her own. Muscovies are naturally wise and caring mothers, and know to make their nests even for the first time in a safe protected place. That year, some of the hens did decide to hatch ducklings in the duck and chicken coop where they went every night. One young hen, who was a beautiful, smaller black duck, with white spots on her breast, and with a few white wing feathers, was particularly sweet and tame. We were worried when that spring, she suddenly disappeared. But then after a few days, she had come back and eaten in the barnyard as normal. Then she was gone again for several days. We saw her again briefly taking a bath in the water trough, having some food, and then again, she was gone. This went on for several weeks until we didn't see her at all. Well, we said to each other, hopefully, perhaps she has made a nest somewhere that we do not know about. Maybe we'll see ducklings soon, just like we did with her sisters. If you've ever hatched chicks before, whether in your classroom or at your house, you might know that it takes about 21 days for a chick to hatch from a chicken egg. Muscovies are different. Muscovies take longer. Their eggs take about 35 days to hatch, so longer than a month. And because it was our first spring having Muscovy babies on our farm, we didn't know they took quite that long. Other hens had hatched some babies in the coop, and had already brought them out to explore the world. But still, the little black duck was nowhere to be seen. One day, when we were feeding the chickens and ducks, and their new spring babies, I heard a noise up at the top of the barn in what we call the hay loft. Our barn has two levels. The first has some stalls for animals, and some storage area for their food and treats, and other things that we keep in the barn to help manage all of the animals. On one wall of the barn, there's a vertical ladder built into the side. At the top is a narrow entrance leading to the hay loft. This hay loft extends over about half the barn, and it's where you keep hay in the winter. There's a door in the hay loft, looking out over the barn yard, high above, and you use the door to load hay into the barn when it's stacked tall, tall, tall, upon a hay trailer. The hay we store in the loft keeps our flock well fed in the winter when the grass is not growing. However, it was spring, and nothing alive was supposed to be up in the hay loft. Yet nothing could have made the sort of scrabbling, moving sound, that I heard, besides something alive. Now sometimes raccoons or possums would like to climb to the warm hay loft as a safe place from the weather. But since we were so far along into spring, I didn't think it was any kind of wild animal. Many thoughts went through my mind. One was a memory of a nature documentary, where wild ducks would sometimes lay their eggs in the hollow of a tree, well above the ground, and the mother would teach her ducklings to jump down onto the ground when they were ready. I wondered, could the little black duck who had been missing, be up in the hay loft, preparing to hatch ducklings? Excited, but unsure, I sat down my feed bucket and carefully climbed the ladder, up, up, up into the hay loft. At first, I didn't see anything unusual. There was the old hay from winter that we hadn't used in the corner. There was the door that we could open to load hay from that tall stack when the hay was delivered, or where we could throw hay down into the barnyard to move and feed to the flock. There was the opening where I could look down into the stalls for the sheep and the goats. Nothing seemed unusual. But I walked around and I came to the old bales of hay from the winter. At first, I didn't see anything there. But as I walked around to look at the back of the stack of hay bales, there was a little black duck, carefully standing over a nest. She had been adjusting the eggs. She had about 15 that she was carefully tending. Oh my girl, there you are, I said in delight. I'm not sure how you plan to get these babies down when they hatch, but we'll be here to help if you need it. This explained where she had been going and why we hadn't seen her. She would come down occasionally for food and water, and otherwise was keeping close to her nest, carefully turning and padding and caring for her eggs. I saw that the nest was softly lined with down that she had pulled from her breast to make it especially soft and welcoming for the eggs nestled in the hay. Of course, the mystery of where she had gone may have been solved, but the question of when the babies would hatch remained. Over the next few days, during the week, we checked every day when we fed and watered the animals in the barnyard. Each day, she was sitting patiently and would cheep quietly when we came to see her. By the time the weekend came, we thought it must be close to when the babies should arrive, since many other ducklings had already hatched from her sisters in the flock. Those new babies who were already hatched were happily running around the barnyard and through the pasture hunting bugs peeping after their mothers and learning about life on the farm. Surely, the little black ducks, babies, would be doing the same, any day now. That Sunday, we went out to check the nest again. When I climbed the ladder and approached her, I said, "Hello, little mother, have your babies come?" She looked at me and fluffed her feathers, protectively, chirping at me loudly. I carefully knelt down and reached my hand gently under her body. My hand brushed a soft new body. As if, in reaching under, I had a woken everyone, I immediately heard a chorus of muffled peeps coming from under the little mother. So your babies have come at last. I said in delight. Congratulations! But why are you still on the nest? I felt further under her warm body as she churped a bit at me in warning. Be careful of my new babies. Soon, in addition to the warm fuzzy bodies of new ducklings, I felt the hard-round curves of, at least a few remaining eggs. Ah, so you're not done hatching yet. Well, I will come back to check on you in a few hours and see if the hatching is done. I spread some seed in front of her to keep her on the nest and keep her tame. And I climbed on the ladder to share the good news with my family. Everyone was so excited that this brave little mother had finally hatched the babies she had worked so hard to protect and bring into the world while they grew. It was hard to wait, but we didn't want to cause any trouble with the eggs that were still hatching. We knew that if the mother was still on the nest, the hatching was not done. We kept ourselves busy until the day had stretched longer and it was mid-afternoon. Can we check now? One of my daughters asked excitedly. Yes, I said, but we must be calm and soothing when we go to check. We don't want to scare the babies or her because we'll need to help them down from the loft. Calmly and carefully, we went into the barn preparing to help the new mother. However, when we came into the barn, we heard unusual peeping coming from one of the stalls near the entrance."A mama," my other daughter said."I think she may have come down already. We walked over to the stall door. I peered over it and sure enough, there was a little mother chirping happily to her babies and making the happy breathing noise that muscovies make when they're with the ones they love best. It sounds sort of like "heh-heh-heh-heh". I saw many babies snuggling against her. We quietly opened the door and walked into the stall. The little mother issued a "chip" of warning, but didn't move. When she saw we were calm and didn't plan to bother her, she tilted her head up towards the hay loft and issued a commanding "CHEEP" noise. We followed her gaze and looked up to the loft as well. Standing at the edge, looking down nervously, we saw three remaining ducklings. They began cheeping loudly. Clearly uncertain about whether they wanted to jump the long distance down into the stall with their mother and siblings. "They cried. Their mother called to them again. Demanding that they joined her down on the ground. I'll go up and help them," my daughter said. But as she turned to walk back out the stall door, suddenly down, down, down, down, jumped one of the three remaining ducklings. It landed softly on the old hay of the stall floor, bounced once, stood up, and ran peeping to its mother, who nudged it affectionately and tucked it under her wing with its siblings. The two remaining ducklings, seeing the bravery of their siblings, peeped loudly and jumped as well, landing in the same way and immediately running to their mother, who affectionately bumped them with her bill and tucked them under her wing. She stood there, whispering affectionately to them for a few moments, and then led them out into the sun of the barnyard. At that point we were able to count. We said,"12 healthy ducklings ranging from bright yellow to dark brown following after their mother into the sun." Of course we knew that there had been 15 eggs. "What if some didn't jump down?" My other daughter asked, "Wait." "Will check," I said, and we all took turns climbing up up up into the hay loft. We looked around once we got to the top. No ducklings, and we didn't hear any further peeping noises from anywhere in the hay loft. We made our way over to the nest where we saw the shells of 12 hatched ducklings, and the unmoving, silent, remaining three eggs that had not hatched. Those eggs had not grown ducklings. The hatch was over, and the good little mother had gotten every duckling down safely to begin their lives on the farm. The rubbery-ness of a new duckling is amazing, and if I hadn't seen that documentary telling me it was possible, and if I hadn't seen those three ducklings jump myself, I'm not sure I would have believed it. I was certain she would need help getting them safely to the ground, but her instincts had told her exactly what to do, and her ducklings had listened and done as she asked. From that day on, to us, she was known as the good mother. We couldn't think of another name that would suit the little black duck better. She raised those 12 babies and many further hatches the sides. Year after year, proving over and over again that she was a wonderful gentle mother. Some of her daughters are very good mothers too. She always teaches them well. The end. Remember, you're part of the story, too. What did you think of this story? What did you imagine when you were listening? We'd love to hear your part of the story. If you and your grown-up want, you can share your thoughts or a picture you drew with our foggy oak podcast family. You might find it easiest to share with us on Facebook at foggy oak farm, but we have lots of options on our website, foggyoakfairytales.com. You can also check out pictures from the farm and learn more about us. Thanks for being part of this story, and I hope you'll join us next week.[Music]