Right on, Alice!

Buoyed by his correct pronouncement of Dory's gender issue, Christian has fancied himself as the resident poultry expert for the past couple months. Fresh off his success, he announced that Alice, too, was almost assuredly a dude.

Alice is our black Muscovy. She is not, mind you, the one whose sexuality came into question back in the fall when we had a little girl on girl duck action. No, Alice has been somewhat of an outcast in the BHF duck community. She has spent time at the pond with Flo and Karl, but never seemed too close to any of the ducks. And dinner duck has never really cozied up to her at all. No, Alice was always a bit different. A bit aloof.

When I told him I thought she was plenty female, he ventured forth with his second theory: Alice was a mule. Interesting note here: All ducks EXCEPT Muscovies are genetically related, descended through mallards, and can freely interbreed. Muscovies are an entirely different species and if they breed with any other breed, they produce sterile offspring, or mules. So Christian said if she wasn't a dude, she was at least a mule.

Well, I now have at least eight others who would beg to differ with both of his theories.


Alice had babies yesterday!

Now to be fair, we found her nest about a week and a half ago. So C already knew he was wrong. But we thought she had settled in to brood just within the last week. The sneaky little rat had already been on those eggs for three weeks! The babies are sickeningly sweet. It looks to me like three will be dark like mama and five will be brown like their dad.

Alice did great on hatching them out, but not so great at subsequent mothering, so we'll raise them by hand. They are inside right now, but will go out into the coop with the mallards (who have grown an insane amount) soon.

Yay, Spring!

...and Dawn has been making a nest, too! Come on, peep peeps!