From Cracked Shells to Cloud Cover: The Teen Saving South Dakota’s “Casualties of the Field”
- Steve Jurrens
- Mar 2
- 3 min read
Northeast Radio SD News - Wallace, SD - In the heart of the Prairie Pothole Region, where the rhythm of the tractor often clashes with the nesting cycles of wild waterfowl, 18-year-old Madison Grimm is carving out a new legacy—not just with a paintbrush, but with a high-tech incubator and a bottle of clear nail polish.
Madison, a three-time Federal Junior Duck Stamp winner, is the founder of Second Chance Flight, a non-profit dedicated to a niche but vital corner of conservation: salvaging wild bird eggs from farm fields before they are destroyed by agricultural machinery.
A Call from the Fields
The idea for Second Chance Flight wasn’t born in a boardroom, but from a ringing phone. Local farmers, knowing Madison’s expertise with her private aviary, began calling her every spring.
“The following spring [after starting my aviary], I started getting phone calls from some of the farmers we know,” Madison recalled during a recent interview. “They knew I had these incubators... and they were calling to see if I could take wild duck eggs from the nests they were hitting when they were haying their fields.”
At the time, state laws made it difficult to legally salvage these eggs. Inspired by a similar organization in California—the only other of its kind in the U.S.—Madison spent six months working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to secure the necessary permits.
Legislative Victory: House Bill 1265
Madison’s mission recently moved from the marsh to the state capitol. Working with Representative Dylan Jordan, Madison helped champion House Bill 1265, which clarifies the legality of salvaging eggs from nests unintentionally disturbed by normal agricultural operations.
“Originally, there was a conflict with state law,” Madison explained. “The bill essentially now allows me to take upland game bird eggs legally... pheasants, turkeys, grouse, all that kind of thing”.
The bill, recently signed by the Governor, ensures that these “casualty eggs” can be legally hatched, raised, and released back into the wild.
The Science of a Second Chance
Inside Madison’s Wallace-based facility, the process is part science and part MacGyver-style ingenuity. When eggs arrive, Madison uses a process called candling—shining a light through the shell to check for development and cracks.
“If I see any cracks... I actually have this natural nail polish that I’ll patch them with,” she said. “I can get almost a 100% hatch rate even on cracked eggs”. Her main incubator currently holds just over 700 eggs, which are kept at exactly 99.3°F with 40-50% humidity.
Last year alone, she successfully raised and released 167 ducklings, two Canada geese, and a rehabilitated Trumpeter Swan found orphaned on a railroad track in Minnesota.
A Family Affair
Conservation runs in the Grimm blood. Madison’s father, Adam Grimm, is a titan in the world of wildlife art, having won the prestigious Federal Duck Stamp competition three times.
“We literally moved here because of the ducks,” Adam said, reflecting on the family’s move from Ohio to South Dakota to be in the center of the flyway. While he admits Madison might now “like ducks more than me,” the family operates as a tight-knit unit, with Janet Grimm managing the logistics and stress of the growing non-profit.
How to Help
As the spring nesting season approaches, Madison is urging farmers to keep empty egg cartons in their tractor cabs. If a nest is hit, the “pointy side down” rule is key for transport.
For those looking to support the effort, Second Chance Flight is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that relies entirely on private donations for incubators, feed, and the construction of new pens for the upcoming pheasant season. - Second Chance Flight
