Stories of my ducks

I lived on the same property with my parents, with my 2 daughters.  The property was alongside a river. My father would go down every day and to see how the female mallard was doing. The duck had made her nest by the river.  The eggs hatch and there was 11 duckling.  My father was heartbroken, when he noticed that every day that there was one duckling less each day, until finally all the ducklings had disappeared.

The next time he noticed that the mother duckling had laid eggs, he stole three of them and had me put the eggs into the incubator.  The one egg was no good, but the other two eggs hatched.

These ducklings changed my life completely.  I had two collies, three cats, and two umbrella cockatoos, now two ducklings in my house.  The male umbrella cockatoo ruled the roost, he would chase the cats and even sit on top of the one cat, when this cat was trying to sleep.  The ducklings would walk all over the dogs. The ducklings would also sleep with the cats.  I love all animals, but birds they are special to me.

The male umbrella cockatoo was called Alex and the female was called Mary.  Mary I got from a pet shop, she simply stole my heart.  I had to have her.  Alex was gotten from a bird farm.  He was originally owned by a couple.  They used to take him everywhere with them.  Then things changed and Alex was left alone.  Alex started to pull out his feathers and biting himself.  So the couple sold him to this bird farm.  When I saw Alex for the first time, it broke my heart.  I wanted to buy Alex, the man at the bird farm told me that if the umbrella cockatoos did not get on, the male would kill the female.  He brought Alex to see how they would get on.  I will never forget it, Mary was sitting on top of her cage, Alex went to her, the first thing Mary did was put her wing around him.  Love at first sight!!

The ducklings would sleep with me every night. They would watch TV with me, and would follow me around where ever I went.  My parents would "baby sit" the ducklings when I went to take the kids to school, or fetch the kids. 

The ducklings soon grew up.  I had a pair, a male and a female. They soon reached maturity. The first time I was woken up by the male duck in the middle of the night, I had no idea what he wanted.  I went to the bathroom and both ducks followed me.  While I was busy with my business lol, the female lay down and her back went very flat, the male attempted to climb on her back, and failed.  I put the male on the female back, he stomped his feet a couple of times and next thing he toppled off her back.  The male duck had just mated the female.  So quick, lol.  The male mallard does a dance after he has mated the female.  He also does a dance to welcome his female.  This happened for several nights.  The female duck in the meanwhile had made a nest in the bottom of the bathroom cupboard, she stole my bath towels to make her nest. 

Again I was woken up in the middle of the night, I thought I had to assist them but to my surprise the female was on her nest.  I put my hand under her and discovered a freshly laid egg.  For the next 11 days, I was woken up my the male to see the newly laid egg.

Incubation of the eggs takes four weeks, I had four weeks of uninteruppted sleep, lol.  The male duck would still sleep with me. 

The day d arrived and after some time all eggs were hatched, 12 beautifully ducklings.