A mallard had nested in a clump of pampas grass by the bridge,and her ducklings were leggily darting down the bank into the stream and being washed away. they pooled in the eddies by the lawn, ran to the grass then back into th stream as we approached them.
The flow under the bridge was too strong for them to swim back upstream to their mum who called them to join her and the few duckling who'd entered the river well above the bridge.
We collected ten of them and put them in an open-topped box where we hoped thier mum might join them and encourage them out. She didn't. So John rigged up the poultry heat lamp in the chickenarium he built for hen chicks last year and we made a warm nesting box at one end with a dog-bowl pool and food at the other. They were there for a week before the whole construction was sodden - mallards ducklings love to splash!
They're now in the dog kennel with a heat lamp and a large baking tray pool in the sunshine - it doesn't matter how wet everything there gets. We crush corn and pellets for them, give them grass too. They are thriving! And very fast.
A few more weeks of heat lamps and they can join the muscovies and ducklings. So far so good....
It's spring at Watermill Cottages!
