Part 2: Miracle's story

Once I realised the duckling was alive, I think my heart rate went up about 50% higher then normal! I took the egg inside and quickly began to research how to remove a duckling from it's egg safely. The words "Highly Risky" glared up at me, from every page. I didn't know what to do! She seemed to be fairly weak from what I could tell, so leaving her inside wasn't really an option, but if I helped her out I could accidentally kill her too! I was feeling very overwhelmed. The stress of helping this duckling and being on time for camp were starting to give me a headache! But then she peeped at me again.... I had to help her.

I laid her down on a dry cloth on my Mom's bed, and still feeling kind of shaky,began to help her out. This is how you help a duckling hatch.

First make sure the room you are in is nice and warm. You will need...
- a dry cloth
- a jar of warm water
- a dropper
- small tweezers

Lay the egg on the dry cloth with the side that has the peep hole facing you. ( the hole the duckling has started to try and get out of).

With the tweezers, carefully remove the shell around that hole. Do NOT break the membrane. As you go, wet the membrane and keep it moist. That is the key to sucuess. If it dries out it will go as hard as rock. If you wet it too much, the duckling could drown.

Keep going until either the ducking breaks out, or you have removed most of the shell. After most of the shell is removed, keep the membrane moist until the duckling is hatched.

That is what I did! From 3pm to 6pm, I slowly and surely removed the egg shell ( which was not an easy task) By 6pm most of the shell was removed, but she was still making no progress or effort to get out. I was physically and emotionally exhausted. I started yelling at her. "Why am I even helping you? You're probably going to die anyway!" All she did was peep at me. I laughed a little bit. Even though she wasn't born yet,she was communicating with me. She was already forming a character out of herself.

My Mom came into the room. "You should probably go to camp now," She exclaimed, " you're already late."

I nodded. She was right. I put the egg in a small box on top of a dry cloth, then brought it into the van, along with some warm water, and the dropper. That became Miracles first car ride, out of many. I figured that if the camp wouldn't let me keep her there, I would just have to tell them I couldn't stay. I had already gone too far to call it quits on this little egg.

Part 1: Miracle's story

Miracle was born on Friday July, 31, 2015 at around 10 pm. I will never forget that night, nor the day. For the last two weeks I had been going non stop. First on a family vacation, and then to work at a camp. By that particular Friday, I was ready to crash! Unfortunately, I had to head off to another camp that day; so I was hoping to catch a few minuets of sleep before I left. To make things short, that never happened. A little duckling stole that sleep, and many sleeps afterwards! You see, while I was at the other camp, my other duck, Peeper, had three of her eggs hatch! Three out of seven. It was  a little sad, but not much more was to be expected. Apparently her breed of duck wasn't even able to brood their own batch. Hatching three was an accomplishment!

Anyhow, when I got home I was pretty excited to go see them. After all, this duckling business had been my summer project. My nap could wait a few minuets. I ran out to the duck pen, and to my delight I saw three little ducklings, the size of my palm, chasing after their mommy. In all the excitement I wondered what had happened to the other four. I went over to the nest, and sighed sadly. Unfortunately, two of them had been crushed, one was lost, and one hadn't hatched yet. I looked at the unhatched one curiously.

" How long has this egg been sitting here?" I asked my sister.

" At least two, to three days," she replied, " The mother hasn't touched it since the others hatched."

I touched the egg carefully, but it was already cold. I sighed sadly. This was the reality of nature. "Only the strong survive." I picked up the egg carefully, and tried to decide what to do with it. I was thinking of putting it in the compost, when suddenly I heard the tiniest little peep coming from the egg. The duckling was alive!!!

The Daily Update

It was pretty cold today, so Miracle had to spend most of the day inside. No worries though! We made her a little swim pool out of a large bowl. It wasn't nearly as grand as the lake, but she still had fun! For the remainder of the day, she sat and watched tv with us and took a tour around the house. lol. she was so curious!

Welcome to the Paddle!!!

Thanks for coming to view this blog about the life of a very special duckling named Miracle!! Because of request, I will try to give weekly updates on her, as well as post bits of her story. Hope you enjoy hearing about this amazing duckling!!