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!
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.)
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!