Some trauma for day 3: today we removed the leg bands from the male ducklings (the females didn’t have bands).
Here are the ducklings when I first arrived in the morning:
An animated GIF of synchronized duckling drinking:
A couple of pictures around noon, after removing their leg bands; they were feeling rather hesitant about us after that:
And some afternoon rounds pictures:
A view from a nesting box:
Still avoiding me (they’ll get over it, especially once I introduce treats):
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!
Yesterday I did a post about our new ducklings. I’ll no doubt do another post about them later today too. But in the meantime, a regular Flock Friday post about wild birds, chickens, and our adult duck.
Firstly, I saw what looks like a carrier pigeon on our driveway. It has leg bands, and didn’t seem afraid of me. I guess taking a pitstop:
While doing the gate post repair, I dug a couple of small holes in the new and old chicken runs, so the chickens could enjoy digging in the dirt:
The heron visited again; the decoy heron doesn’t seem to deter it:
I chased it off again (though it had been there a while before I noticed it):
Got a dirty bill there Bert:
The chickens watching me most intently, waiting for me to give them treats:
A couple of funny/interesting things in this shot: stretched neck, and eye in mid-blink (the chicken in the foreground) — fun fact, chickens have a third eyelid, a nictitating membrane, that protects and moistens the eye while still allowing them to see:
Rice treat scramble:
Buffy laying an egg:
Bert:
You may have seen this on the What’s It Wednesday answer; a closeup of Bert’s foot:
Bert:
Head close-ups:
And a couple more shots of him:
Stay tuned for more duckling pics later.
An exciting day: today I picked up the new ducklings from the local post office.
As I always do, I strapped the box of ducklings in the car seat for the ride home:
Here are the ducklings huddled together in the box:
The list of ducklings we purchased:
And care and identification info on the back:
I carefully lifted each duckling out of the box, and dipped their bill in the water, to show them how to drink:
They all figured it out quickly, and were unsurprisingly thirsty, having never had water to drink before (they survive on hatching stores and some gel in the box during transit):
They’re too small to need bricks under the waterer yet (that’ll change!), so I moved it directly to the floor:
I added a feeder, and sprinkled some food on some bricks so they could see it. Here’s the first one to eat:
The others caught on:
Then figured out that the feeder had lots more available:
They tilt their heads back when drinking:
More eating:
Checking on them a couple of hours later. About 90° F (32° C) under the heat lamp; they are on the edge of that, so seem comfortable:
A couple of hours later after that, more eating and drinking:
Brace yourself for daily duckling pictures for the next few weeks. They grow quickly!
(Plus, of course, the usual Flock Friday post of Bert and the chickens; I’ll keep posts about them separate, at least for now.)
A time-lapse video of a week of our pond, including our duck swimming around, me cleaning out the duck house in preparation for new ducklings, and a heron sighting.
Thanks to Camect for generating this summary video.
On this week’s Flock Friday, lots of pictures of chickens, a couple of GIFs, and a bonus frog.
The chickens hanging out by the old coop:
Bert with a droplet on his bill:
Bert “helping” the koi eat their food:
The chickens watching me expectantly just before I gave them their morning treats:
An animated GIF of the chickens spinning around waiting for afternoon treats inside the new coop:
And waiting for treats again in the old coop:
Broody chickens:
Another broody chicken:
You may have seen the pond deck box frog on my personal blog; here it’s on the edge of the box, just before hopping out:
Lonely duck. Hang in there Bert; new ducklings will arrive soon!
A bunch of pictures of chickens enjoying bonus water on a hot day:
I also turned over some logs, revealing tasty bugs:
Finally, a GIF of a week on the pond:
(You can see me cleaning out the duck house on the 23rd, and the heron on the 25th.)
The new ducklings should arrive sometime next week, so there may be some baby duckling pics in the next Flock Friday!
As a fun birthday activity yesterday, I spent the afternoon cleaning out the duck house and setting it up for ducklings, plus building a ramp for their swimming pool. Read on for more on that.
Firstly, a shot from the duck house camera of before cleaning it out:
Here’s the duck house with open doors, while I was cleaning it out (and a cameo of Bert on the island):
Empty duck house; I also removed the inner floor, a second floor layer that I made on the theory that it’d make it easier to clean out, by pulling it out like a drawer. But I never did that, since that’d freak out the ducklings, and stuff would fall down the back anyway, and it was easy enough to clean out without that:
Me sitting in the duck house, adding hooks to arrange wires:
I repaired and re-added the feeder tube, a new Brinsea EcoGlow brooder, a new heat lamp, duckling feeder, and shelf liner for grippy flooring (for the first couple of weeks):
The Brinsea EcoGlow is a heating plate on adjustable-height legs that ducklings can go under like a mother duck, giving them intimate warmth. I put it in one of the nesting boxes, to further that impression:
I also added a new ceramic heat lamp; unlike previous ones I’ve used, this doesn’t emit any light, and should last much longer, while using less power:
I added the temporary barriers to close the vents above the maintenance door, to help retain more warmth:
Next, I went to the workshop and made a ramp to make it easier for the ducklings to get into the paint tray I use as a swimming pool. Here are some routed sides for the ramp:
And some rough routing of traction grooves:
The completed ramp, next to the tray:
Underside of the ramp; it hooks onto the handle of the tray:
Ramp:
The ramp and tray in the duck house. I will remove it before adding the ducklings, as they won’t be ready to use it until about the third week, and only for brief supervised swims initially, but good to have it ready now:
The duck house is now almost ready for the new ducklings, arriving in just over a week. The last steps are to fill the food and water dispensers, remove the tray and ramp, and turn the heat back on (I tested them for a few hours today):
I also changed the LED light strip to red, as seen in this cam shot; red is a more soothing color for ducklings (and chicks):
Stay tuned for lots of pictures of ducklings in just over a week!
This week, GIFs of birds swooping, chickens fighting, and the duck flapping his wings, plus more pictures.
Here’s an animated GIF of a bird swooping over the pond; I think this is a female red-winged blackbird:
A still from that; nice wingspan:
Our remaining duck, Bert, in the pond:
And on the bank (which is rather weedy at present):
A GIF of a male red-winged blackbird swooping over a heron, no doubt telling it to move along:
GIF of male and female red-winged blackbirds by the duck house and over the pond, watched by Bert:
A still of that:
Broody chickens:
The chickens can get feisty sometimes; here’s a GIF of a chicken fight; fascinating how they fluff up their feathers:
Last GIF, of Bert standing on the “island” and flapping his wings:
The pond is very full at present, with all of the rain recently, so the island is slightly below the surface. Which is fine with him; easier to get onto it. Here he’s starting to flap:
And just standing on it:
Notice that the duck house door is closed now; I noticed that he wasn’t going in anyway. I feed him next to it in the mornings, as previously mentioned. I’ll probably clean out the duck house this weekend, in preparation for new ducklings in just over a week. Looking forward to that!
Let’s finish up with a couple of chicken pictures. All eyes on me as they wait for treats:
No eyes on me after I toss out the treats:
This week: followup on Gert, news about ducklings, a duck and bird GIF, and various chicken pics. Yep, it’s Flock Friday!
As you may have seen mentioned last week, we lost our female Buff duck, Gert. We’re not sure exactly what happened, but think a raccoon or larger wildlife grabbed her. The last sighting of her alive was when both ducks swam towards the waterfall shortly before dawn, looking curious about something:
Then a few minutes later Bert swam back alone:
An hour later, when it was light, I saw Bert on the island (upturned pot), looking like he was searching for Gert:
And he kept swimming over to the waterfall area and looking around:
As described in that post, I later found her remains in the middle of some tall grasses next to the waterfall.
We are of course sad to lose another duck, though know full well that it’s a risk of free-range ducks.
We’re sad for Bert being all alone now, too.
But we certainly aren’t giving up on keeping ducks. We were hoping they would breed and make more ducklings, but now that that isn’t an option, we have ordered more. Seven ducklings, for arrival in the beginning of June.
Firstly we got a replacement female Buff, like Gert was.
We also got male and female Khaki Campbell ducks:
Male and female Rouen ducks, which are interesting for looking similar to common wild Mallards, though do not fly:
And male and female Blue Swedish ducks:
(Click those links to learn more about each, if interested.)
Hopefully we’ll have a better survival rate this time! The duck house I built is sized for four adult ducks, but since the ducks prefer to live outside, it’ll be plenty big enough for seven ducklings.
Of course, in preparation for ducklings again I’ll need to close up the duck house and convert it back to a duckling nursery, but I’ve noticed that Bert doesn’t go in the duck house to eat anyway; he seems to get plenty to eat from free-ranging. I have started to hand-feed him in the mornings, instead of giving him mealworm treats; perhaps not as tasty, but better for him.
So, look forward to lots of cute duckling pics in future flock updates!
Anyway, back to the pictures. It’s getting warmer, so I opened some of the chicken coop vents:
I picked up some supplies at the feed store (after getting bee nucs), including straw and chick feed for the ducklings, chicken food, flock block, and chicken bedding. So the storage area of the new coop is rather crowded at present:
Bert wandering around the edge of the flowerbeds:
Bert visiting the chickens:
As mentioned, I’m hand-feeding him in the mornings now:
An animated GIF of Bert going onto the pond island and flapping his wings, while birds swoop over the pond to drink:
A still of Bert flapping his wings:
Broody Kiwi and Martha:
Chickens:
Eggs in a nesting box:
This morning when I did my rounds I only saw one of the ducks, which is rather unusual. Bert was there to greet me, but no sign of Gert. I thought that perhaps she was nesting somewhere, so I searched all around the pond, but couldn’t find her. Ungood.
When I went back inside, I reviewed the pond cam recordings. I saw them both head off camera by the waterfall at 04:42 AM, then only Bert return a few minutes later. And no further sign of Gert.
I went back out and looked again, and found her in the middle of some tall grasses next to the waterfall. She was dead, and somewhat nibbled.
My guess is they saw some animal on the bank and went to investigate, as they often do. But it was a raccoon or other nasty wildlife that grabbed her and dragged her into the grasses, and things didn’t end well for her.
We are of course very sad about losing another duck, and the first to a predator, probably. Especially since now Bert is all alone.
We had hoped they would breed and hatch ducklings, but now we’ll need to buy some more. One duck isn’t enough for us, and ducks are social creatures, so he’ll be sad for a while.