The ducklings are all doing fine today, so enjoy the happy cuteness.
The Blue Swedish duckling under the EcoGlow, and others gathered near the waterer:
In the corner:
Drinking and eating:
The Blue Swedish and a Rouen look like they’re hugging while watching me:
Eating and watching me:
I caught a Live Photo of a Rouen jumping off the EcoGlow; here is a GIF that:
Droplets of water on ducklings; they can’t help getting water everywhere:
In a nesting box:
As with the previous batch, I will post separately about the newest ducklings. These Flock Friday posts will include the older ducks and chickens.
Before I closed up the duck house for the new ducklings, the older ducks had only been going in their house to eat:
Down the ramp:
They are now being fed in this temporary food dish; they’ll have access to the house feeder again once the new ducklings are grown:
Ducks on the pond:
Chickens heading to bed:
Ducks on the pond again:
And on the pond bank:
GIF of a Rouen flapping his wings:
Sleeping on the pond:
And sleeping on the pond bank:
Chickens with treats:
Stealing lettuce I’m holding for the ducks, while I’m crouched to take pictures:
Duck treats:
Under the shade:
Ducks eating from the temporary food dish:
And some food scattered on the ground:
GIF of ducks eating:
Submarine duck:
It’s day two of the newest ducklings… but unfortunately not for the Buff one. She died overnight.
I was a little concerned about her yesterday, as I saw her apart from the others a few times, which is unusual for ducklings; a potential sign of health issues. I didn’t see anything obviously wrong with her yesterday, but this morning when I visited the duck house, I found her dead in the corner, unfortunately the corner that’s in the camera blind spot.
Reviewing the cam footage, this is one of the last shots of her, having a midnight snack with the others:
I saw her go into the corner, then didn’t see her again until I found her in the morning.
It’s always sad to lose an animal, but it happens. I guess she was just too weak. I just hope we don’t lose any of the others.
Sleeping around the thermometer:
Cuteness in the morning:
Just now, I saw a Rouen on top of the EcoGlow; I seem to recall one of the previous batch liking that spot, too… yeah, as seen on day 5 of the previous batch:
Welcome to day one of the latest ducklings!
In case you missed it, the TL;DR is that we were concerned about having more boys than girls, which can lead to fighting and other issues, so decided to get seven more female ducklings, so we’ll have a total of five males and ten females — two girls for every boy (reminds me of a song).
Today those new ducklings arrived at our local post office, so I headed out to pick them up.
As usual, I secured them on the front seat in the truck:
The new ducklings in their box, with me about to remove them (photos by my wonderful wife, Jenn):
Notice the other setup in the duck house (since I decided not to do a followup to my previous prep post): the shelf liner flooring (to give traction to wobbly ducklings), the Brinsea EcoGlow heating panel, the lowered heat lamp, the thermometer, and the duckling-sized waterer and feeder. It won’t look as clean for long.
Ducklings in the box, with their gel food and heat pack:
Duck info:
The first one out, the Blue Swedish:
The Buff. I’m not sure what’s on her head; I’ll have to take a closer look at that (I’d guess either gel or poop):
The Khaki Campbell, about to have her bill dipped in the water to introduce the concept of drinking:
One of the Rouens:
Another Rouen; there are four of them, so I’ll skip the other two:
Everyone out and exploring:
The temperature is too low in these pictures, as the pop door was open shortly beforehand. It should be 90°F initially; it raised later:
Drinking:
A couple of hours later, already starting to accumulate poop, and the temperature is at the ideal level under the lamp:
The Buff sitting under the EcoGlow (which could be a bit lower; I forgot how tiny day-old ducklings are!):
I hope you enjoyed seeing brand-new ducklings again! (And did you see and listen to the video?)
I currently plan to continue with the daily posts like I did for the earlier batch, though I may decide to reduce the frequency or simplify in some other way. It’s almost a rerun of the earlier ducklings, though no doubt there will be differences.
Listen to the peeping and watch the wobbliness of our new day old ducklings.
Welcome to season three of the Yellow Cottage Homestead Ducklings show!
We begin this season, like the previous one back in May, by cleaning out the duck house in preparation for the new ducklings, due around Thursday. [Update: probably Wednesday.]
Here’s a cam shot of the duck house before cleaning it out:
I started by raking out the straw and spilt food (ducks are very messy eaters):
I then hosed it out; I designed the duck house to be fairly waterproof with this in mind:
Wet duck house:
More hosing out:
I left the duck house empty for now, so it can dry out:
I left the food in the tube, since that is still duckling food from the earlier batch (they get starter feed until 18 weeks old). The new ducklings won’t be able to reach it for a couple of weeks, but can eat from the tube when they can.
In a couple of days time I will finish setting it up for the new ducklings, with shelf liner on the floor, the duckling feeder and waterer, EcoGlow, and heat lamp. I’ll probably do a separate post about that, but it’ll be similar to last time. [Update: nah, not much point posting about it; you’ll see the setup when you see me add the new ducklings.]
Next, I installed a proper gate pole. The duckling run is temporary, but since I’ll want it again for the second set of ducklings, I’ll be keeping it around for probably at least another ten or so weeks, so I figured I might as well install a proper pole to hinge the gate:
The pole is set in concrete, from when it was elsewhere in the garden, so I just dug a hole and poked it in. It’s pretty sturdy.
It’ll be easier to open the gate now. It has hinges on the left and a latch on the right, just like a real one:
The rest of the run fencing is still acting as a shade for the older ducks; I’ll restore the enclosure once the new ducklings are old enough to use it in about three or four weeks time:
The ducks were supervising my work:
It’s Caturday!
Porcini arrives while another is eating:
The two twins, Spud and Pommie:
Porcini:
Comfy Poppy:
Poppa peeking up at Spud:
Spud in the morning:
Pommie and Spud in the cabins:
Pommie oozing out, Spud cozy:
Two cats inside:
Two cats in the feeder (I don’t get pictures of this much anymore, as the camera isn’t recording, but I captured these live):
Pansy in the back of the shop:
Welcome to the first Flock Friday with the new ducks. Plus chicken pictures, of course.
As you probably saw in the previous post, we have ordered seven more ducklings, all female this time, to address the gender imbalance of the ducks. They will probably arrive around Thursday next week, so I will resume the daily duckling posts with them at that time, and will feature the older ducks in the Flock Friday posts going forward.
Again, you can read all of the previous duckling posts from the beginning via the “ducklings 2020” tag on this blog. And the second batch of ducklings will be tagged “ducklings 2020 again”.
On with the show; here are the chickens waiting for treats:
Chickens with rice treats:
An animated GIF of Sven and Betty on the ramp from the duck house, Bert flying into the pond to chase Sven, then Betty emulating and distracting him:
Some still images from that:
Duck treats:
Bert, Betty, Raoul, Rémy, and Sven:
Sonja, Sven, and Clyde:
Ducks eating in the duck house:
The non-Buffs hanging out on the pond edge:
A GIF of Sven hesitantly sliding down the rock slide:
On morning rounds today, Flo snuck through the gate from the chicken run into the veggie garden; she quickly realized the error of her ways, and I got her back through the gate after a minute:
Ducks eating in the duck house again:
Enjoy that while you can, ducks — I’ll be closing up the duck house this weekend, in preparation for new ducklings. I’ll feed the older ducks from a dish next to the pond. More on that another day. Stay tuned for the exciting bonus season of duck TV!
Yesterday I posted some musings about getting more female ducklings, to address the current imbalance of five males and three females, and expected issues that will cause as the males mature.
After sleeping on it, we decided to go ahead with that idea.
So, we just ordered seven new ducklings, all female. (Hopefully there won’t be any errors this time!) To keep things simple, we got the same four breeds as before, so there will be two females for each male of each breed. Not that they care.
That includes one more female Buff, like Betty (adult duck pictures from MyPetChicken.com):
Plus one Blue Swedish:
One Khaki Campbell:
And four female Rouens, since we have two males:
(Click those links to learn more about each, if interested.)
So, just when I was thinking of winding down the daily duckling posts, I’ll be starting again! It’s good timing, though, since the ducks don’t need the duck house anymore (other than to eat, which they can do outside), but I still have duckling food, and can leave the temporary run in place for when the newer ducklings are old enough for it in a few weeks time.
You can look forward to lots more cute baby duckling pics again starting in about a week!
For a preview, you can review the earlier duckling posts; this link will show them all in chronological order. I’ll use a new tag, imaginatively titled “ducklings 2020 again”, for this second batch of ducklings.
No pictures this time, just some musing. As we see Bert’s behavior towards the other ducks, and think about potential problems as the other males mature, both in terms of fighting and over-mating, we’re regretting trying to get balanced sexes… more so since we ended up with two male Rouens instead of one of each gender.
So, tonight while Jenn and I were standing on the pond deck after watching an example of that kind of behavior, we were seriously thinking about whether or not it’d be sensible to buy more ducklings now.
Since the new ducks are now in the pond, I could get more ducklings, all female, and go through this seven-or-so week process again. Oh no, more cute ducklings!
We’re thinking a more sensible ratio would be two females for each male. Since we have five males and three females at present, that means we need seven more females.
If we did that, we’re thinking about getting four Rouens, and one more of each of the other breeds.
Of course, the other alternative would be to leave things as they are, and see what happens. Maybe it won’t be as bad as we fear. Do we really want 15 ducks, and potentially more in the future if they breed (and we don’t lose any)? We could always get more ducklings next year.
But we have an opportunity to get more now, and have them be only about 10 weeks younger.
I’m going to sleep on it and decide tomorrow, but I welcome any thoughts, especially from anyone with experience of keeping ducks.