Alrighty, today’s the day: some of the ducklings seem keen to explore beyond the duck house and run, so I’m going to let them out today. We’ll see if they take advantage of the opportunity. Stay tuned for tonight’s duckling post!

In the meantime, one last Flock Friday without the latest ducklings. In next week’s post, they’ll be all together.

Firstly, did you see the video of the hummingbirds last weekend?

Here are the older ducks having a meal:

Hey Betty:

On the pond amongst fallen leaves:

Boys’ club; the four male ducks (aka drakes):

Since the pop door opener on the new chicken coop is malfunctioning, I have to go out and reset it each evening, so I added a hook-&-eye to hold the hatch open while I do so to make that easier:

The manufacturer is sending me a new motor, which hopefully will fix that issue; we’ll see.

The four chickens that prefer that coop always look startled when I turn up around sunset:

Exploding chickens! It’s molting time, so there are feathers everywhere:

A totally normal thing at this time of year. They stop laying while molting, though, so we’re down to only about five eggs per day, instead of the 12-17 we were getting in summer. Which is still plenty for us, we just can’t give them away for a while.

This is nifty; if you look closely, you can see her third eyelid half closed:

More pictures of the chickens:

A favorite dust bath location. Though Buffy looks embarrassed; “don’t look at me, I’m hideous!” It’s okay Buffy; you may look messy while shedding your old feathers, but you’ll grow fancy new ones:

Back to the ducks; the ducklings watching duck butts in the pond:

Let’s all go this way:

What’s that strange red thing in our food dish? (It’s a tomato, which I haven’t offered them before; they prefer green treats.)

Hanging out on the path, and Sonja flapping her wings:

In the pond; Rémy showing his shiny green head: