Feb 8th 2024 around 11am, "Miracle" was born.
We found her at around 1PM while getting ready to go to a doctor appt in Vero Beach. We were on the screened in porch and heard a strange, loud "Peep". Mary said "what was that?". Mark looked in the closest Formex house and saw a tiny yellow bird darting around.
LONG STORY MADE SHORT ;-)
A wild duck hatched a chicken. The duck is sitting on eggs in that coop, a chicken laid an egg on her, she sat on it and hatched it.
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Mark named the little bird "Miracle". Many miracles surrounded her being born and found before other chickens might have killed her. The duck surrogate mother (Lucky) was glad for us to get that annoying little peeper out of her life. Lucky has another week to go before her baby ducks hatch and she'll take them on a walkabout that baby chickens could not handle.
Miracle is obviously a Silkie, she has a blue beak, blue skin and five toes per foot (Silkie characteristics). We're guessing that Marilyn, our oldest and most beautiful Silkie hen dropped an egg on top of the duck, it rolled around and got mixed in with the ducks eggs. The father is Pierre (which means "rock").
At only 5 hours out of the egg, Miracle shows signs of being a "bearded Silkie", she has a teeny tiny little beard already.
We bought a heating pad online and it was delivered the next day, classic Sunbeam model. We put a towel on it and now have Miracle the lap chicken. The towel reads about 104-degrees F so it's a perfect little play land for our little lap-chicken. We've been taking turns holding her on our laps so she is not scared or lonely. It's been fun studying all the different peeping sounds she is making.
LOUD SHARP PEEPS means, I'm cold, I'm scared, I'm all alone
GENTLE LITTLE BUBBLING PEEPS = More of that please (whatever positive thing is going on, food, pets, cuddles), Happy, Hi, how are you?, We're good right?
This little chicken will be a fun experiment in behavior. She is definitely "hand raised" from day one. She is not afraid of us at all. On the contrary she craves attention and play.
