Our Chicken Hatched Her Duckling!

Miss June, our blonde chicken, started "brooding" about a month ago.  Now, I really had no idea that was what she was doing other than I knew she was acting quite strange.  She wouldn't get off the nest ever, I never saw eat, drink, or even go outside.   Most importantly, she stopped producing eggs.  Although she is really only an 'every other day chicken,' I still really appreciate when she lays for us.  Every day when I would go to get eggs she puffed up her feathers and continued to "set" on her eggs.

Curious about this behavior, I asked my friend Jennifer, with BeeHaven Roadside Market (http://www.beehaven-farm.com/) if she knew what June was doing.  It was pretty simple, she was "brooding."  This is basically their innate behavior to hatch the eggs they are sitting on.  Well, since we didn't have a rooster, I knew she would be fully disappointed because she would never produce any offspring, yes I know chickens don't comprehend feelings.  :)

So, Jennifer thought of an awesome idea.  She asked if I wanted some fertile eggs from her farm.  After much thought and being scared of the idea of raising chicks, I accepted.  Later on that evening, I received a text, "How do you feel about ducks?"  Well, long story short, I accepted 2 duck eggs and 1 chick egg.  I labeled them with the date and type of egg they are just so we didn't accidentally collect them.  The duck eggs are unmistakably larger, but the chick egg was brown and matched the other nonfertile eggs.  Miss June has been setting since May 23 and yesterday, she hatched her first duckling!  Her chick egg got squished, but we are still expecting one more baby duckling soon!

Honestly, when I went in there last night to gather eggs, Heath told me to give them a pep talk because he saw that I had bought 18 eggs from the store.  She needed to hatch or get off the nest type of thing.  When I saw that shell cracked, I thought that she might have accidentally squished another egg, but much to my surprise, as I was digging around underneath her for eggs, there was the baby duck!! 

Running out of the chicken coop, "HONEY, HONEY come here!!!!!!!"  After all my excitement, he rushed over to see what it was.  I told him his pep talk worked!  :)