The ducklings and chicks are about 1.5 weeks old now. I wasn’t able to post an update on them while away, but now that I’m back you can expect more updates.

Here’s an amusing shot from the duck house cam from before I left for San Jose:

They were so small:

An ominously glowing chicken coop, from the red heat lamp:

The ducklings snuggling under the heat lamp:

So tiny:

The chicks:

We had a catastrophe with the chicks: on my last night in San Jose, the chicken coops lost power, due to the GFCI outlet popping, probably caused by heavy rain. This doesn’t affect the adult chickens, but is a disaster for baby chicks, that need 90° F heat. When Jenn checked them in the morning, she was horrified to find three dead chicks. So we are now down to five.

I’ve added tests to my Dejal Simon app to watch the cameras, and alert me if they lose connection, which should help prevent another disaster like that. I also looked into other power loss alarms, but the few options had various drawbacks.

It was very sad to lose chicks like this; that was the first time that has occurred, and we’ll do what we can to avoid it again.

The surviving chicks are definitely getting bigger, able to reach the lower roosting bar now, via the mini practice roosts below:

Me spending time with the chicks:

They really like the roosting bar:

In the duck house, I had paper and shelf liner on the floor to give traction while the ducklings were very young. But it had become rather soiled with spilled food and waste:

So as planned, I remove half of it, and added straw bedding, to transition to that:

It was impressive how much the ducklings grew in a week:

This morning, I added some bricks under their waterer, to raise it up a bit, and added a cat dish with a bit of water in it:

The ducklings can drink from the dish if desired:

Or step in it, as a preamble to swimming, which they’ll be able to start next week (in a very limited, supervised capacity):