A CRACKING ‘egg-speriment’ between a mother, son and broody bird has seen a duck manage to hatch several hen eggs and take the chicks under her wing.

Okehampton resident Victoria Perryman and her son Philip Perryman-Clark, 12, hatched the unusual plan after feeling sorry for one of their ducks, Mildred, who broodily made a fancy nest but laid no eggs.

Victoria said: ‘We have a bit of a menagerie in our house. We have had a pair of ducks for about four years and one of them got broody for the first time. She made this really amazing nest but had no eggs to look after in it and we felt a bit sorry for her so I sent my niece out to collect six eggs from my dad’s farm in Chagford.

‘As soon as I put the eggs in the nest she took to them straight away. I just thought it would make her feel better to sit on them, I didn’t think anything would come from it.’

Victoria said her and Philip went away for a couple of days and when they came back, they could hear some chirping coming from the nest.

‘It was absolutely amazing,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t believe it had worked. From the six eggs, five hatched. One was very floppy and we tried CPR. He lasted the night but then slipped away. One escaped through the hedge and got lost, so she’s raising three chicks.

‘They are beautiful, they call to her and follow her around as if she is their mother. It’s a really lovely thing to happen.

‘We’ll have to be careful when they get bigger that the duck doesn’t lead the chicks into the pond! The other duck is very jealous of her and she sits by the run all day. She even chases the babies away.’

Victoria works at Exbourne Pre-School which is very keen to promote children’s interaction with animals. She said she often takes in animals and insects she has found to show the children, such as caterpillars which have turned into butterflies to teach the life cycle of the insect, tadpoles they have hatched into toads and she even took in Boris, the spider she found under her shed, which was given a positive mention in the pre-school’s recent Ofsted report.

Victoria said the chicks will stay with them in their semi-detached house, along with their amphibious salamander, two cold water fish, Japanese fighting fish, small dog and the wild birds they feed. If any of them turn out to be cockerels, however, they will have to go and live on her dad’s farm in Chagford as they are not allowed in residential areas.