There are good problems and then there are bad problems.

Having new life on your homestead is always a good problem to have.

When trying to live a more self sufficient life I can guarantee you that you'll have plenty of opportunities to solve problems.

Murphy's law is perpetually in effect.

And the problems you encountered often have to be solved with the resources you have readily available to you.

Trips to Tractor Supply, Orscheln's, The Home Depot or Fleet Farm have to be far and few between due to the time commitments such trips into town entail. Part of homesteading is also part of being a prepper.

One is none and two is one!

It is always helpful to have extra supplies or makeshift facsimiles laying around in case of emergencies or convenience.

Fortunately, on a homestead, the problems you have can be literally matters of life and death.

Today's opportunity to creatively problem solve involved the life of one of our Muscovy ducks and the life of a newly hatched chick.

Background Info:

• Our Muscovy duckess (not sure if that is a word) laid eggs and went broody over 2 months ago. Unfortunately, a rat snake ate all her eggs after she sat on them for about 24 out of 25 days. She was devastated and heartbroken over her loss. This put her into a state of shock and she got "stuck" on being broody.

• To help Mamma Duck effectively cope with her loss and positively move on with her life, i.e. start laying eggs again, @mobile-joat suggested we put fertilized eggs under her so that she can fulfill her mission and hatch out some ducklings.

• @papa-pepper came to the rescue with some fertilized chicken eggs. We put them under her and waited with bated breath to see if @mobile-joat 's advice would work.

• Then, just the other morning, my eldest son went to go let the chickens and ducks out of their coop for the day when he discovered a cute little yellow fuzz ball on the ground in the coop. He quickly scooped the chick up and brought it to me.

• We sprung into action and quickly assembled a brooder box for the new chick made out of the following materials:

    - a dry Rubbermaid bin.
    - a feeder tray.
    - a mason jar and waterer base.
    - some random paper towel for bedding.
    - a heat lamp so the chick can self-regulate it's body temperature.
    - a food tray and some chick food.
  

Here's some videos for those that would rather watch than read.

Now, going on 5 days, Ug (short for The Ugly Duckling) is still alive and well. None of it's other siblings hatched out and Mamma Duck is still stuck in Broody mode.

So, although the initial purpose of putting the chicken eggs under her failed, we did gain a new chick on the homestead.

We'll try again, but this time we'll put some fertilized duck eggs under her and see if our form of therapy can cure Mamma Duck of her broodiness.

Stay tuned for more adventures on the @bluerthangreen and @allforthegood homestead!

Thanks for Reading!

As Always,