Duckie Cuteness

The 10 duckies are 4 weeks old now and learning to Quack. There’s a lot of catching up to do so bear with me. Within the first week we knew just a plain old cardboard box with woodshavings was no where near capable of absorbing all the water flung around by those little balls of fluff. We needed a better brooder. So after 3 or 4 tries we landed on a cardboard box with a screen for a bottom so the water just drained right out. Once they were a week old we let them swim in the bathtub

( just pretend that little mess on the tub isn't even there ;)

as you can tell they hated every minute of it =) After two weeks they outgrew their fancy setup and made the move outside.( about time they were incredibly stinky and messy ) Now they have the entire back half of the manor. They got acquainted with the chicks through the wire and go outside to range almost everyday together now. Eating lots of grass cuts down on the feed bill right? It’s free money and they do all the work =) Their favorite treats are bananas and peas ( who woulda thought ) and will follow us around the yard looking for them. Today we got them a spacious new kiddie pool to paddle around in. Talk about cheap entertainment ;)

They love it, although they haven’t quite mastered the ramp and kind of fall out when they’ve had enough =/ Well that was the summary of the first four weeks of duckling life hopefully with many years ahead. Hope it wasn’t boring, although how could it be with such cute videos and pictures =)

God bless

---Anna

A very cute post

we have 7 more babies!!! 3 duckies and 4 more meat birds;) Wednesday we went into Tractor Supply "just to look" at their chickies and duckies. As they had told us they didn't even get the kind we were interest in, which were Cayugas since we're short one now:( but the first thing we see is a big ole tub of tiny lil assorted ducks =O long story short we walked out of there with 2 cayugas (solid black ones) 1 blue swedish (just in case the name wasn't clear enough its blue)


and 4 meat birds. The meaties are cute now but in about 6 weeks they'll look like this

A Tragic Accident

I had meant this post to be very happy and bubbly full of stories and videos about their first swims and walks outside, but sadly this is not the case those things will have to wait (stay tuned for a more light hearted and bubbly post). One of our dear Cayuga ducklings (a solid black one) now rests forevermore beneath a holly tree in the woods. We had two Cayugas and they became one of my favorites because of how friendly they were, and how pretty they were going to be. These past few days have been extremely wet and rainy the ducks area was in desperate need of more bedding, a.k.a. leaves,( They live in the chicken house now ) but because everything outside was soaked we decided to rake up the stray leaves in the back of the chicken house where we keep feed bags both empty and full, as well as other assorted junk. It was getting dark so we (me and my dad) just raked them in. The next morning everything was fine I spent too much of my morning in with them instead of doing school feeding them clover and cuddling both Cayuga’s as well as the others. I didn’t notice any of the long white strings that you pull off when opening a bag of feed. If I see any of the aforesaid strings I usually jump to remove them, but this piece must have been covered up. That afternoon when I went into their little area to take them for their daily swim they all came peeping up to me except for one. I was stunned to say the least I ran out and called Dad and Philip who were outside practicing baseball. She had tried to swallow a string about a yard long and got most of it down before it got tied around her little bill. I felt really bad knowing that I could have been prevented it so easily, but as Dad says these things happen. Needless to say the chicken house has been scoured for any bits and pieces of trash. In honor of the sweet little thing I give you this extremely cute picture with all 11 duckies on their first excursion outside. ( it is now the desktop back ground for several of our monitors)