I’ve been taking so many pictures of the chicks and ducklings each day, I can’t save them up for #FlockFriday. So here’s a bonus post to help your Monday!

Some chicks:

The ducklings are very messy (as expected), so I’ll need to muck out the duck house probably weekly, at least until they are able to go outside. I use a plastic container to collect the old straw using a small rake:

Mostly cleared out; once they can go outside, I’ll probably hose it out. The duck house was designed to be fairly waterproof for a reason:

Fresh straw:

The two buff (light-colored) ducklings can be told apart by the color of their bill. One has a more brown bill, the other is more pink. Their description says “The female has a brownish orange bill with a dark bean and the male has a yellow bill.” I’m not sure that clarifies it for me; is “brownish orange” what I think of as pink, or brown? “Yellow” seems more like brown to me. Perhaps time will tell; certainly once their feathers come in it should be more obvious.

Anyway, I’ve noticed that the brown-billed duckling doesn’t seem to be as much of a fan of swimming; I’ve seen it drinking from the water, and wade in to the shallow end, but not actually immersing itself like the others do, or at least not as enthusiastically:

Here’s the pink-billed duckling in the water:

Intermission for a chick on top of the waterer:

Back to the ducklings:

Duckling treats:

So cute:

There’s an expression “like water off a duck’s back” for a reason! Their waterproofing oils seem to be getting nicely established:

Head shake:

Ducklings waiting for swim time, as I fill the paint tray from a water jug:

The jug is then refilled from the tap by the chicken coop, and stored in the duck house cupboard to come to room temperature for next time. Wouldn’t want them swimming in water directly from the tap, as it’s quite cold as it comes out of the well.

Once they get closer to being able to swim in the pond, I’ll mix in pond water, so they can get used to that.

A duckling stretching their wings:

Sleepy chicks; it amuses me how they fall asleep on the roosting bars and go limp:

A couple of chicks roosting on the grit dispenser (grit is sand-sized chunks of granite, which they store in their crop to help eat treats, since chickens don’t have teeth… another expression):

The chicks are getting better at flying; I recently saw them on the nesting box bar (the nesting boxes are temporarily blocked off, until they are old enough to start laying, since I don’t want them sleeping in there):

Fortunately, the ducklings can’t fly (or even jump very high), so the half door is plenty to contain them. Good thing, or they’d jump out to get to the treats:

I’ll try to save subsequent pictures for Flock Friday. Or do I need a Flock Wednesday too?! They’re just so cute and fun to watch.

I know I posted a bunch of pictures of the chicks and ducklings yesterday, but I can’t help myself; I just have to post more cute pictures.

Yesterday and today the temperature is in the 90°s F (32° C), so I had the vent wide open, and the heat lamp off. I also gave them more swimming time to cool off:

Rapid exit:

Once the sun set, I turned the heat lamp back on, and mostly closed the vent, since it’d cool off a bit more than they’re used to overnight. Here’s a shot from the pond cam of the pond and duck house in the dark:

This morning, I took some more pictures while spending time with the chicks and ducklings. Here’s how I found the chicks when I arrived; they’ve really taken to the roosting bars:

A bunch more photos of the chicks:

A chick in the hand:

Heading over to the duck house, I gave them some more swimming time:

A treat in the water is the best kind of treat:

Watching the ducklings from the chair next to the duck house… dripping sweat in the heat, slightly tempted to cool off in the pond (not at all hygienic):

I know I said the ducklings should only have short supervised swims for the next couple of weeks, but I decided to leave the tray in the duck house this afternoon, since it’s so hot, so they can cool off as needed. I am still supervising, just from the air-conditioned comfort of my home office, via the duck house cam. It’s a risk, that I hope I don’t regret, but the water is room-temperature, shallow, easy for them to get in and out, and they haven’t shown an inclination to stay in for too long at a time:

The chicks and ducklings are two weeks old today, so I gave them a few bits of kale as their first treat.  (It’s generally recommended to stick to the starter feed at first, so they get used to eating that, then slowly introducing small quantities of treats.)

But first, here’s a shot from the chick cam of them exploring the roosting bars. A little surprising that they can reach the upper bar; it’s a long way for a little chick:

Chicks sleeping on the lower bar yesterday afternoon (when the coop was warm enough to not need to be under the heat lamp):

A shot from the duck house cam of a duckling stretching its tiny wings:

Overnight, the chicks snuggled together under the heat lamp:

And ducklings under their lamp:

It took the chicks a few minutes to figure out that the kale was edible. Here’s the first chick to take a treat:

A couple of others chased her; what will become a normal behavior for them:

They soon figured out the treats:

A couple checking me out:

Roosting chicks:

I also gave kale treats to the ducklings, which they figured out immediately:

I also temporarily put a paint tray with water in the duck house, so the ducklings could have their first supervised swim:

Ducklings don’t have the waterproofing oil when first hatched, so they can get chilled or even drown if left in water. So they can only have short supervised swims from two to five weeks old. Not only is this good training for them and their leg muscles, it helps encourage them to preen, which distributes their oil glands (or so I read; since ducks are a new thing for us, I’ve read guides to raising them; they are similar to chicks, but have some differences).

Why a paint tray? It has a gentle slope, making it easier for ducklings to walk in and out of the water. This tray isn’t ideal, though, as the lip too high for them to easily climb over. So I’ve ordered another from Amazon.

Here a duckling is dipping its bill in the water, which helps clean it:

Found another treat:

Drinking from the tray:

More wading:

I removed the tray when I left the duck house. We’ll give them brief supervised swims each day till about five weeks old. After that, the tray will be left in there until they are old enough to go outside, once they are fully feathered, which might be around eight weeks old.

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):