“Oh no please, allow me!”

The first livestock I ever got upon purchasing my first house a year and half ago were four little Muscovy ducklings. I was planning to raise them to eventually hatch their own eggs. Unfortunately one morning, as they were nearing laying age, they were all massacred by two roaming neighborhood pitbulls. It was grisly and heartbreaking.

Fast forward to today, I now have the most secure coop on the block and a new pair of Muscovies living safely inside. About a week or so ago I noticed a somewhat larger, waxy, off-white egg in the nest box. Hmm, did I have a chicken with a health issue? I brought the egg inside and was about to research it when I realized… Of course, it’s a duck egg.

YES! I had my first duck egg. Every day there was another one and I dutifully removed any chicken eggs that appeared in the nest, hoping she would sit on the clutch. Well, it turns out that I now have another first, my first broody hen. Obviously it was the Buff Orpington who went broody first, can she tell these eggs have been fertilized or what?

Unfortunately the duck wants to brood her eggs too. So what does that leave us? A duck and a chicken stuffed into the same nest – a fluffed up and hissing pile of poultry.