a chicken by any other name...

This is really part 2 of my chicken story (chickens are sneaky) even though it seems to be about ducks.

Besides having chickens, my sister and brother-in-law have three ducks.  When I approached the duck yard, I noticed that there was a wood duck there.  When my sister and b-i-l first moved out here, there were wood ducks nesting in the tremendous pecan tree in their backyard.  They didn’t return the next year but I guess they’ve been around because my sister mentioned having seen them on occasion with the other ducks.  When I finally got too close for this one, it flew up and joined it’s fellow on the roof of the chicken coop.

So, my sister and b-i-l used to have two ducks but then one night something got one of the ducks.  Ping, the other duck was very lonely because ducks are social creatures so they got two new ducks.  Were supposed to be both female but one turned out to be a male.  The lone female started laying eggs (you can read about my encounter with duck eggs here) until one day the duck started brooding on one of her eggs.  The other drake, Fred, started to take exception to Ping’s attentions to Ethyl (the girl duck) and became aggressive and though poor Ping is bigger, he was getting pretty beat up so he had to be separated.  So now they are back to square one because Ping is alone again, only now, they have 2 more ducks.  (So, just in case you were wondering, it is NOT a good idea to put a duck in with the chickens for company.)

Ethyl on her eggs.

Well, it seems the duck hen, this is the hen that lives with the ducks because she doesn’t get along with her sisters, also laid a couple of eggs in the nest because the duck is sitting on one duck egg and two chicken eggs.  Ought to be interesting.