Today I replaced the waterer with the full-sized one, and hand-fed lettuce treats to the ducklings.

The usual morning mess, with the old waterer:

The full-sized waterer. It is heated, to prevent the water from freezing, though that isn’t plugged in currently; I won’t bother connecting that until wintertime. It also has a larger capacity, and deeper cups from which to drink, which is needed now that their bills are growing:

Hand-feeding lettuce treats; they were hesitant, but several were brave enough to approach and grab them:

A funky head shake:

Dunking; you can also see one drinking from the new waterer:

Afternoon peek through a nesting box:

Afternoon swim, with Bert’s supervision:

 

Bert drinking water draining out of the duck house:

Today, just a few photos. It’s a hot day, so we left the pool in the duck house all afternoon, to help them cool off. Technically they’re not ready for that for another couple of weeks, but they’ve been sensible about not staying in the water too long, and it’s easy for them to get out thanks to the sloping tray and ramp, so avoiding getting too hot is more important than a low risk of drowning.

Today I traumatized the ducklings by mucking out their house, as it was getting a bit ripe. I also made a hacky brick patio next to the duck house.

Firstly, a photo from last night, shortly before closing up the duck house for the night, showing the main vent all the way open, since it was fairly hot yesterday:

This morning’s mess:

To muck out the house, I firstly used a small rake to scrape the straw into a plastic bin (for later transport to the compost); the ducklings all hid in the back nesting box:

Then I removed the shelf liner that was there to give traction in their first week:

And hosed out the floor; I designed the house to be fairly waterproof, with vinyl tiles, caulk, and outdoor paint, since ducks are very messy:

All that done, I added fresh straw, and put the waterer back:

Then I added and filled the pool, and the ducklings quickly emerged; they love swim time:

Hand feeding leafy treats:

The ground next to the duck house is a bit muddy from all the water, so I decided to make a hacky patio out of some spare bricks in a junk pile elsewhere on the homestead. So I collected a bunch of bricks in a cart:

I just laid the bricks on the ground. Eventually we might make a proper patio, or just have gravel:

One more project for sometime, adding gravel to the path to the duck house.

I thought I’d do a separate post to reveal the duckling names, to make it easier to refer back to in the future.

For our first batch of ducklings, we named them with “B” names for boys, and “G” names for girls: Bert, Bill, Gert, and Gill.  For this batch, we initially chose names on that system, based on the country of origin of each breed, then decided to use the breed name as the initial, since the gender is more obvious. Fortunately, our remaining adult duck, Bert, fits into that system too, since he’s a Buff breed: “B” for Buff.

In the following picture, the Buff is leftmost (with her head not visible): her name is Betty. (Actually suggested in a blog comment.)

The two ducklings in the foreground are Khaki Campbells, developed in England, so we considered “K” and “C” names. I think the left one is male, named Clyde, and the right one is female, named Cora.

The one next to the yellow EcoGlow is a male Blue Swedish, named Sven, and the one at the back is a female named Sonja.

The two at the bottom of the ramp are Rouens. We had ordered one female and one male, but unfortunately we received two males (they refunded one). The breed was developed in France, so we went for French “R” names: Raoul and Rémy.

I just posted about the duckling names, but I also have the usual assortment of pictures of them eating leafy treats today:

Today some cam pics, plus I raised up the heat lamp and EcoGlow brooder.

Some morning cam shots of sleepy and active ducklings:

Hey there:

I raised the heat lamp to the highest position; it is off during the day, only turned on at night, since it gets down to around 50° F overnight:

I also raised the EcoGlow, now that the ducklings are getting bigger:

Treat time; look at all those proto-feathers coming on:

I mentioned in my previous post that I closed up the duck house after dark. Here’s me with a head-mounted light removing the swimming tray:

Treat time:

Eating from the feeder tube: