This is just so brilliant I had to share!
The mad Ukrainian in this tale is my very dear friend and neighbour and this is all true. It goes like this.
The Mad Ukrainian came up (she lives down the hill from us) one evening and asked if she could swap some of her chicken eggs for some of ours as she had a broody hen. Do what? I asked. Well seeing as we have a cockerel and she doesn't, could she swap some of her definitely infertile eggs for some of our possibly fertile ones to put under her broody hen to hatch out. Ah, problem number one is our eggs have been out from under a hen for some time and problem number two is we don't keep them at the required 38C so nothing will happen. Well she wanted to try anyway and while she was at it why not try a duck egg too? It would be an experiment.
We laughed, we swapped and we waited.
Last week we saw a very happy Mad Ukrainian. Not only had the experiment been a success as broody hen had sat blissfully on eggs in a quiet shed but she had managed to hatch two live chicks!! Not only that but if she had kept her cool and sat for a wee bit longer there would have been a little duckling too. Amazing. (and good news for us as this proves Sale-Or and Malcolm are not Jaffas!)
Sadly one of the chicks didn't make it having strayed too far from mum's warmth but at time of writing the second chick is doing well and feasting on porridge. Again I hope to get some photos of it when time allows.
Hmmm, I feel a photo-fest coming on and it just might happen next week as the school transport issues have been sorted and we won't be doing 50 miles a day on the school run!
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