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For those of you just coming across Nursery Rhymes you will not have heard of our feathered friends Puddles, Bonnie and Forest. For those of you that attend our nursery you will have met our Minature Silver Appleyard ducks.
In February 2016 we decided to buy an incubator to incubate our very own ducks to have at our semi-rural nursery. We were able to get 5 duck eggs and they went in the incubator and the children checked on the duck eggs every day to see how they were getting along. We took this opportunity to teach the children all about the lifecycle of the duck and they watched educational videos about ducks hatching, which as you can imagine meant they were super excited about the arrival of our very own ducks.
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On 27th March 2016 (Easter Sunday) we saw movement with one of the eggs so had to keep an eye, that evening the egg began moving more and more and the duck started to break through the egg. Later on that evening Puddles had arrived and was cheeping away to let us know of her arrival. Puddles stayed in the incubator for a further 24 hours until she was a lot stronger and then she was able to come out. At this time there was still no further developments with the other eggs.
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After the Easter weekend Puddles arrived at nursery and the children were delighted. Charlotte showed the children pictures and videos of her hatching and we informed parents of the developments via our Facebook page so they could share the news with the children. This was an exciting time as we were yet to name her, after lots of names being put forward she became Puddles. She was very much loved by staff and children alike. She had lots of cuddles and spent her time in the office in a box under her heat lamp and every now and then went to see the children. Unfortunately the other ducks did not hatch which was very sad as Puddles had no ducks friends to go and live in her new duck enclosure we had built for her.
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Puddles was very much talked about at nursery, each morning the children and parents wanted to hear how she was and see how much she had grown. As she got bigger she started to get her feather through and was getting to be a much bigger duck. She even went out into her new enclosure during the day so she could explore. Puddles is a hugely sociable duck and followed us wherever we went.
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We needed to find Puddles some feathered friends, so we managed to find a Drake which we named Forest, he came along and Puddles was delighted. These 2 spent their days roaming the garden in search for food and often ending up in gardens they were not meant to which gave the staff a run around as they had to herd them back into the correct garden, even sometimes inviting themselves in the office!! These 2 were very happy together but we still felt one more duck would make the nursery complete as the children had very much bonded with these feathered creatures.
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This brought along the arrival of Bonnie, all 3 ducks are Minature Silver Appleyards but they all have very different markings which we loved. Bonnie was a very quiet duck and the dynamics of the ducks changed.
Puddles became the leader and the other 2 relied heavily on Puddles to follow around the garden, she would be the mischievous one which would head into the building or lead them down the hedges into a garden they were not meant to be in, the other followed sheepishly. These 3 became little characters, Puddles will quack loudly to the other ducks and bob her head up and down as if to say ‘this way follow me’ or in protest if they were off doing their own thing without her. The ducks are in our main garden throughout the day (now that we have managed to stop them entering other gardens J ) and they plod along as the children play quite merrily. They are very placid creatures even when the children decide to chase them with Puddles quacking and bobbing her head as she heads off away from them.
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They have become a fantastic addition to the setting and being semi-rural if felt fitting to have them here enjoying the large garden space we have alongside the children.
With it coming up to the time that our 2 ducks Bonnie & Puddles start laying eggs we are extremely excited as this means we will have lots of little ducklings to watch develop as we did with our very own Puddles.
This time we are going to let the ducks sit on some eggs so the children can see how the mother duck incubates her own eggs and we will also incubate some in nursery, although this time we are hoping they will not decide to hatch on a weekend.
We will keep you updated of our next venture with our ducklings, although am sure the children will be letting you know too.
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