Welcome to day two of the ducklings. They’ve settled into their routine: eat, drink, poop, scamper, sleep, and grow. That’s the life of a duckling, at least for the first couple of weeks.

Here they are when I first opened the top of the maintenance door; lots more poop than yesterday!

I built the aforementioned doors with a handy design with four doors, where I can open just one for a quick peek, the top two to let me access inside without the ducklings getting out, the left two if I need to get inside quickly, or all four for full access.

Here you can see the top two doors open, and the bottom two closed, with a glimpse of the ducklings and Bert:

I moved the EcoGlow out of the nesting box, since they didn’t seem to want to go under it in there. We’ll see if this place is any better:

They did go under it, though not for long:

Eating and drinking:

We’ll remove the leg bands in the next day or two. Those indicate the breeds and sexes of the ducklings. So in the meantime, I want to determine markings so I can identify them. The Buff female is of course obvious, being unique. The Blue Swedish ones are fairly distinct: those are the ones with light gray backs and yellow chests. The one with the red band is the male; I notice he has a more yellow chest and foot, too:

The Buff under the EcoGlow:

A disappointment is that we ended up with two male Rouen ducklings, as seen here; notice they both have green bands on their right legs, indicating they are both male. We had wanted one of each sex. Not sure if we’ll try to get a couple females to balance that, or live with it:

Another shot showing the Blue Swedish in the center of the picture, female on the left, male on the right:

Drinking:

Checking out a nesting box:

A male Khaki Campbell:

The male Khaki Campbell on the left, the female on the right (plus the Buff shaking her head); telling the former two apart is a bit trickier; I haven’t noticed obvious differences yet. I’ll have to take a closer look at them:

The two Blue Swedish again:

More pics again tomorrow!