Maybe baby

In early May we found a nest in the garden hedge, super excited we watched each day a new egg arrive, until it got to 12 perfect little blue/green eggs...... then they were gone.... not a sniff of shell to be seen..... we think badgers or rats found the nest and cleared it out. All a little bit heartbroken we gave ‘muma’ (her new name) some extra corn and hoped she might try again..... and she did..... 10 days later I spotted her hoping out of the old chicken shed. Carefully I took a sneaky peek inside and spotted another perfect little nest... and there she sat for about a week... until one day she was in the garden at breakfast time with all the others..... my heart sank, I new that wasn’t good news..... I went to check and sure enough all the eggs were gone again 😔 utterly heartbroken for her, we just didn’t know what to do to help her keep her eggs safe.
We live on the edge of a small woodland, surrounded by Devon’s finest fields... (and the main A30 to Cornwall) but this means foxes, badgers, rats, buzzards and crows to name but a few are all looking for eggy yumminess...... We honestly didn’t know where to begin with helping her. She seemed to give up after this.... If she did start a new nest we haven’t  found it, and she’s never gone ‘broody’ and sat on it as she’s out with the rest of the flock each and everyday ..... (and quite often doing a little ‘chase me’ dance for Reg)!  So we all gave up on the duckling dream and were just really thankful that we still had our girl safe and sound 💗