Velvet, the cabinet was part of a double blessing. We have a small hobby farm and I swear I try to have one of every living creature on it, lol. For ages, I had wanted an emu and a friend called and said , contact this lady , you will get your emu.... so I did and what I got was the sweetest lady who was trying to home her late father's emus and wanted only a few dollars for the pair in order to compensate the neighbor who would have to give his time to assist us in catching and trailering them..... as we talked , I told her about all my chickens etc and she said, when you go to the barn there at dad's , look inside , there is one of those incubators and I do not know if it still works but you can have it' I know dad used it up until a couple years ago.....so I did ....got it home, kicked off some dust and she fired right up, works like a charm.....believe me, otherwise , I would still be using them good ole styrofoam baters, lol...... I count that day as one of my most blessed...... got my babies who I adore and a great bater to boot....

AWW! I probably would have kept all the finches too! I've never had one before, but they are cute and really pretty. How's the duck eggs? But oh yeah, ducks are just one of my favorite animlas in the world! My 2 favorite ducks that I've ever had are Jake and Topaz. They were sisters. We don't have them anymore. Topaz got killed by a dog and Jake just grieved herself so much that she died one day. They were like dogs, not ducks. They both would follow us around the yard! Here is a picture of them....they were muscovies... Topaz Jake This is Jake's only baby she ever had and his name is JRose. He looked just like his mom! Here is one of Topaz's daughters. She had 12 babies. Her name is Diego This duck was the love of Jake's life. He was JRose's daddy. His name is Snowflake,,, This duck is Shadow and he was Topaz's boyfriend. He was the daddy to all of her babies. This is JR. She looks just like her daddy, Shadow.. This is Sue. (we thought he was a girl at first, so that's where he got the name --LOL (Sue and Shadow are brothers. I can't belive it because they look so different... Here is Jamoca; he's a mallard Jamoca's best bud was Troy and I still have her...here she is... Well, those are some of the ducks I've had....but my favorites were Jake and Topaz. I've had about 25 different ducks and they have all been special to me, but Jake, Topaz, Sue, Shadow, Snowflake, Troy and Jamoca will always be the main ones that made me fall in love with all ducks. I use to call them 'The fantastic 7' Well, I hope I haven't taken over your post here! LOL I just got to sending pictures and thought I'd go ahead and show you some of my favorites. Talk to you later :) Genny

The best education for both you and the children would be to get your hands on some good books about the basic care of waterfowl. If you do it before you attempt to incubate any eggs, it will probably increase your success, as well as save you all from possible dissapointment. Storey's Guide to Raising Ducks and the Book of Geese, both by Dave Holderread, as well as Domestic Duck, and Domestic Geese, both by Chris Ashton, are about the best books out there on domestic waterfowl. Your inability to hatch is not caused by any infertility with your birds, it's your management. No domestic poultry or waterfowl will hatch eggs effectively in a communal nest like you have. The books explain why, and how to manage the birds so that they will have a better chance of hatching their own eggs.

I let a broody (chicken) hen incubate my turkey eggs. This also made raising them a lot easier since she taught them to eat. When I raised my first group of turkeys (from MMM) I had the worst time with them. Getting them to eat was a nightmare and I was losing at least one a day. From now on, if I ever decide to raise turkeys again I will definitely let a chicken do the work. Interestingly, after my turkeys were about 8 weeks old, my broody turkey hen adopted them and she has been with them for well over 2 months now. Much better mommies than the chickens who seem to tire of their brood after 4-6 weeks (in my experience anyway).