The Wild Ducklings Who Smelled Like Pancakes 🐣🦆

Have you heard the expression “follows you around like a duckling” before? This is a story about a time when we rescued and hatched seven wild mallard duck eggs and how we learned that, like domestic ducks, wild ducklings imprint on you when they are growing up, but unlike domestic ducks, they eventually yearn for and return to nature. 

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Written, performed, and produced for you by Claire Krendl Gilbert. Thanks to my daughters for their assistance playing and singing the intro and outro!

©2024 Claire Krendl Gilbert. All rights reserved.

Transcript

Hi friends, welcome to Foggy Oak Fairy tales, a stories podcast for all ages where we tell farm stories from real life happenings on Foggy Oak Farm, as well as fantasy tales to spark, both learning and imagination.

00:00:32

I'm so glad you're here.

00:00:38

Have you heard? The expression follows you around like a duckling before.

00:00:44

This is a farm story about a time when I was young and we rescued and hatched 7 wild Mallard duck eggs and how we learned that like domestic ducks, wild ducklings will imprint on you when they are.

00:00:59

Growing up.

00:01:00

But unlike domestic ducks, they eventually yearn for and return.

00:01:05

To nature.

00:01:07

When I was a young teenager, my father flushed a wild Mallard hen off her nest. When he was mowing by our pond.

00:01:16

It wasn't a safe spot for a nest. It was exposed to weather, barely hidden at risk of predators finding her and the eggs at any moment. And she had startled so thoroughly and flown off, quacking her protest so loudly that my father was fairly certain she wouldn't return to her ex.

00:01:37

This happens sometimes. It happens to hens here on our farm if they are disturbed before they've really settled into being Rudy and wanting to stay with their eggs.

00:01:49

When that happens, the abandoned eggs are eaten, whether 1 by 1 or all at once by any passing predator who sees a rare opportunity for an easy meal.

00:02:02

My father had always wanted to raise wild mallards, their bright plumage, intelligent eyes, and smaller, sleeker bodies were different than domestic Mallard ducks, and more interesting, would they still migrate for the winter if they were raised on a farm.

00:02:19

Could they be domesticated? It was an unexpected opportunity to fulfill a decades long curiosity and save the nest in one fell swoop. So my father took it.

00:02:32

He brought her seven eggs home to our incubator and worked quickly to set up the Styrofoam box with the plastic view window to take the.

00:02:42

It was an old fashioned incubator, inherited from my grandmother, and you had to turn and miss the eggs manually several times a day. Rotating the eggs mimics the habits of mothers as they shift around on their nests, turning the eggs so that the chicks don't stick to one side of the shell and.

00:02:59

Fail to hatch.

00:03:02

Misting them with water keeps the humidity at the right level for the developing babies, so that the membrane they have to break through to hatch doesn't get tough and dry and impossible for their little beaks with their temporary egg tooth to break through.

00:03:15

There are incubators that can do all of those things these days, but that wasn't what we had. So to miss them, Dad attached a spray handle onto an old syrup bottle and filled it with water he assumed since the mother hadn't been fully bedded down onto the nest that she had probably just started incubating her clutch.

00:03:37

He circled a date 27 days away on the calendar known as.

00:03:43

The incubator was set up in our dining room right by the front.

00:03:46

Door. So when any of us came and went from the house and on several times a day when dad was spritzing them with water and rotating them, we'd all talked to them.

00:03:56

Also trying to imitate the way that mother hens quack and cluck and chatter to their babies when they are breeding them.

00:04:03

Though we used our own voices. Oh, baby ducks. What are you doing? Hello. Ooh, baby ducks. Beep, beep, beep, weep. Say, in high pitched wheedling tones, but we thought the babies would appreciate.

00:04:18

You may already know this about ducks, chickens, geese and other birds, but baby chicks and ducklings and goslings and so forth go through a process known as imprinting. You may have heard that a baby chick or duck will imprint on the first thing that it sees upon hatching.

00:04:35

This is officially known as filial imprinting, and it's a visual bond that links babies to their parent.

00:04:43

Ducklings imprint more strongly than chickens, though goslings surpass them in their imprinting bond by far. While the usual visual imprinting is important, researchers have also found that chicks and ducklings begin learning the sound of their mother's voice while they are in the egg, and they continue to cement the bond with her.

00:05:03

By both visual and auditory imprinting. That way they know to come when she calls them, and not to come when another hen is calling her babies. So in talking to them, we also hope to form an auditory imprint.

00:05:17

That way, when they connected our voices with our faces, they'd know who their parents were on day 26, a day or two before we thought they were due to hatch, we started to hear little peeps emanating from the eggs. We huddled around the incubator to encourage them.

00:05:38

Oh, baby ducks. Are you hatching baby ducks? Come on up, baby ducks. Cheap, cheap, cheap. You can do it. We called to them.

00:05:47

Several of the eggs were pipped the next morning, but no babies had hatched by that evening.

00:05:52

Be patient, my father advised. It can take a long time to get from a pip to hatched. It's.

00:05:59

A lot of work for a.

00:06:00

Baby. So we went to bed, bellies coiled tight with anticipation, furiously impatient to meet the babies. By the next morning, five of the babies had hatched their downy, brown and yellow bodies.

00:06:14

Clumped together in an exhausted tangle in the incubator.

00:06:18

The two remaining eggs were thoroughly cracked. They would hatch at any moment.

00:06:23

And sure enough, by that afternoon, the final two babies were out a 100% hatch, which is a rarity in nature, and even more so when hatching in an incubator where you are just doing the best you can to imitate nature, usually very imperfectly.

00:06:40

We had gotten very lucky and my dad had worked very hard to create an environment where all 7 eggs would develop and hatch.

00:06:50

Mallard ducklings are singularly adorable. They have short brown bills with a pink underside.

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Which sits on the front of a yellow face with a brown stripe on each side that goes from nose to the back of their head, crossing their brown eyes. So it looks like they are wearing elaborate eye makeup.

00:07:10

Their brown backs are interspersed with yellow patches near their wings, and by their little downy butts and a sweetly yellow underside stretches from their neck to the back of their tails, with delicate brown legs and thinly membraned chocolate brown feet tipped with delicate nails.

00:07:29

As adults, they'll be differentiated by sacks. Females keep their brown bells and striped eye makeup with patterned brown feathers all over their bodies. Both wings sported deep purple band surrounded by a span of white, outlining the purple.

00:07:45

Males at the height of breeding season display a bright green head down most of their neck with a yellow beak that has a greenish cast. The base of their neck is outlined in a white band, after which the feathers transition to a brown breast and a body of silver. Grey, white and black feathers.

00:08:04

Both males and females lose their dark chocolate brown legs and their feet and legs turn to a bright orange.

00:08:12

Both males and females look less brilliant during their molts, which is when they shed old feathers, but I think they are always among the sweetest looking of ducks. Our muscovies are double or triple the size of a Mallard, really more like the size of a goose, and the males have a distinctly T Rex esque quality when they look at you.

00:08:34

So we talked to these new adorable babies in the incubator, not wanting to get them too excited, but hoping to help them start imprinting on us.

00:08:43

At the sound of any of our voices, they would peep wildly, running around the incubator, looking for a way to get to us and tumbling and flapping over each other in their eagerness.

00:08:57

The newest babies needed some more time to dry off and rest after hatching, so we left them alone until the evening, instead working on final preparations in their breeder to ensure the food, water, bedding and heat lamp were positioned just so wild.

00:09:13

Ducks. It was thrilling.

00:09:18

When we took the babies out, we noticed that they smelled like Maple syrup. We soon realized it was because Dad had been missing them using that.

00:09:27

Old syrup bottle.

00:09:28

It was disconcerting to walk over to the brooder or hold the ducklings and smell pancakes, but not unpleasant the entire time that they were young.

00:09:38

Until they got their adult feathers, they always smelled like syrup, especially when they were wet.

00:09:46

And although we hadn't been quite sure what to expect, the babies imprinted perfectly on us when we gave them hard boiled egg, which is an excellent, healthy treat that chicks and ducklings love and which helps to keep them tame. They would come running and gobble it down, nibbling with their little bills and darting around the brooder in excitement.

00:10:08

When I held them, they all wanted to Nestle on my shoulders under my hair, as if my hair was the feathers of a mother duck, unwashed through the yard. They would follow, eagerly peeping and cheeping and talking the entire time.

00:10:23

If I ran, they would run peddling their little feet after me in a blur of devotion.

00:10:30

These ducks were so imprinted and tame that we could lay them out in a line on our stomachs.

00:10:36

And they would sit there babbling and content, though we quickly learned it was important to lay a towel down on yourself first, because one thing a happy duckling loves to do is poop.

00:10:47

Better to have the towel pooped on than your clothes.

00:10:51

Their favorite place of babies was the bathtub, especially if you put little shrubs of lettuce in with them for them to chase after.

00:11:01

It's worth noting that the first thing any duck will do when you put it.

00:11:04

In water is poop.

00:11:06

Immediately and then frequently while they are in the water, just like when they sit on you, it's a sign of being happy and comfortable, but I don't think this is something people realize about docs unless they've had.

00:11:17

Them we tell them. Ohh baby ducks. You're making a terrible mess. Just terrible. And they'd cheap and charge at one of their siblings. They'd play and flap and dart around the tub, soaking themselves to the skin.

00:11:34

Because at first they didn't know how to activate their oil glands. This is something the mother Duck does for them, and I didn't know how to do it, so we had to just be sure to keep them in shallow, lukewarm water and then get them back under the heat lamp in the brooder to prevent them from getting cold until they learn to activate those glands back by their tails.

00:11:54

By nudging them with their bills themselves.

00:11:58

And of course, when they got wet like this, they smelled like syrup, bath time and sitting on you. Thyme wasn't the only place that they would make a terrible.

00:12:08

Mess ducklings love to take food and things that are not food, like pine shavings that make up their bedding and mix it in with their water.

00:12:17

Then they put their bills in the mixture and eat and drink at once. It makes sense when you think about how wild ducks eat. They dabble in the water of a lake, stream or pond.

00:12:27

Eating whatever bits of plant life or bugs or other edible bits come into their bills.

00:12:33

They forage on land too, of course, but the love of dabbling in the water is firmly ingrained, and the splashing and sloshing that happens in a breeder means that the water with ducklings is always filthy. The moment after you change it. And water is always splashed across the pan and into their food.

00:12:53

So with ducklings, you're changing bedding and food and water a lot. And I already mentioned the.

00:13:00

Poop. There's a lot of poop.

00:13:03

Between the water spread and all that poop, you're very ready for them to move out into a bigger pen outside where any mess they make can be rectified by moving their pen to a new patch of grass.

00:13:17

So as soon as they were old enough, we moved them outside to one of Dad's large rolling pens where they could gorge themselves on fresh grass and bugs.

00:13:27

They kept their heat lamp for warmth and comfort, especially at night, and began to adjust to their lives as outside ducks.

00:13:35

Eventually, as all chicks and ducks do, they grew up enough that they could be allowed to free range during the.

00:13:41

OK.

00:13:42

And they grew Wilder as their adult feathers came in, they'd still come to you if you called them, but more furtively, they didn't want to be held, and they didn't want to snuggle on your lap. Instead, they formed their own flock and waddled all over the farm until, of course, and at last they found the pond.

00:14:03

And once they found the pond, they stayed there. Occasionally, A handful would wander carefully back across the pasture to the barn for an afternoon feeding. But by and large, they made do with foraging and dabbling down at the pond. We hoped, though, we realized it was probably futile.

00:14:21

That they would stay at the farm.

00:14:23

Wild ducks migrate in the fall, heading South for warmer weather and consistent food. We'd feed them, we'd make sure they didn't go hungry and had safe wintering places, but they'd have to want to stay.

00:14:38

They've been practicing flying more and more now, flying between the barn and the pond instead of waddling the long trek over the pasture hills. We were in September now, and the weather was gradually turning cooler.

00:14:52

One day the Ducks just weren't there. They weren't at the barn. They weren't at the pond. They weren't foraging anywhere on the farm.

00:15:02

They had gone.

00:15:04

They might come back in the spring, though, right? I asked my father.

00:15:10

They might, he agreed. And we all held that hope in our hearts instead.

00:15:17

In the spring, some of the Ducks did return in smaller groups and not all at once. They didn't stay long. They land in the barnyard and look around as if they were trying to remember something.

00:15:30

They'd have some food remain for a couple of days and then leave.

00:15:35

We had a chance to see them at a distance. Glad they'd found their way back, but they were no longer the tame imprinted babies we had hatched.

00:15:44

But they were no longer the tame syrup smelling imprinted babies we had hatched.

00:15:51

After this handful of days, each group left to make their nests or fine mates and we lost that brief glimpse into their lives.

00:15:59

This pattern repeated for a few years with fewer ducks stopping by each time until they didn't come back at.

00:16:06

All. We hoped that men they had found good nesting spots and safe waters to raise their babies. But of course we never really knew. In the end, these weren't domestic ducks in the end.

00:16:20

These weren't domestic ducks. They were wild.

00:16:23

Things we were lucky to have had that brief time with them before they returned to nature and accepting their instinctive yearning to make their own way was part of our responsibility as temporary caretakers.

00:16:36

And when I see wild mallards, and honestly, every time I have pancakes.

00:16:41

I always remember our seven syrup smelling messy ducklings and smile. The end.

00:16:48

Thanks to my mother for suggesting this story, grown-ups may be interested in the story as told by my father, Richard Gilbert, in an essay called Wild Ducks that parallels the departure of the ducklings with my departure for college.

00:17:04

Remember, you're part of the story too. What did you think of this story?

00:17:12

What did you imagine when you were listening?

00:17:16

We'd love to hear your part of the story.

00:17:21

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00:17:29

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.

00:17:42

You can also check out pictures from the farm and learn more about us.

00:17:47

Thanks for being part of the story and I hope you'll join us next week.