Gras, the other Embden goose, seems to believe Foie is not up to the task. She started sharing setting duty about a week ago, much to Foie's consternation. Here we have a shot of Foie hissing at me, with a leg on Gras as though to teach her how to set.
They are fun to watch, even when on the nest. They constantly shift around, moving eggs back and forth, and when they do sit, they pull straw around thier bodies to make a good seal so no eggs are exposed. When they are both taking a break, they carefully pile the straw over the eggs to keep them warm.
On a sad note, Blue of Blue and Velvet the Runner ducks fame, took ill and had his life taken by yours truely. It would have been a painful, lingering death if I had not done so. He was sitting alone all this past week, having great difficulty breathing. At first I thought it was hardware disease like the Pekin, but the postmortem showed he had mold in his lungs; the entire right side was filled with it in fact, I'm surprised he made it this long. I'm researching exactly which it might be.
I hate to end on a bad note, so I will leave you with a picture of Snoop sitting on a nest. Nothing special about this, right? Wrong! Runner ducks are known to be very poor setters. Nobody told this little girl though. Better yet, she's setting on 20 guinea eggs! Good girl!
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