Pampers, The C-Section Duckling

By Matthew Coover

It all began one morning in April. Our pet duck had been setting on a nest of fourteen eggs so long we thought they'd never hatch, but one day they did.

After several days no more ducklings appeared and we decided to dispose of the remaining seven eggs. Several were rotten and the egg we were preparing to break had a slight crack already, so that's why it hadn't hatched....... we thought! But....... upon making a small hole we discovered a duckling inside, too weak to emerge. The hen had left her nest, so we put him under a heat lamp. After several days he'd still not emerged, and we knew we'd have to help.

We'd heard that ducklings ingest the remaining yolk shortly before hatching, and we hoped he'd completed this process. Thankfully, after softening the membrane (which had dried out) with water and painstakingly removing three layers off shell and membrane with our tweezers we found he had.

After being helped from his prison our little pet just lay around and peeped for a couple days. We really weren't sure if he'd make it. But after several days, Pampers as we'd named him, was following his adopted parents everywhere they went. After a week we returned him to his natural mother who gladly accepted him, and to this date he is the healthiest and friendliest of his family.

Yahweh giveth and Yahweh taketh away.  We're just thankful he gave us this little bundle of fluff to observe firsthand!