New Duckies!

About a month ago, Z came inside after dinner and said, "Has anyone seen Fatsykins?" One of our white layer ducks had gone missing (he and E claim to be able to tell them apart). C and I helped him look high and low, roaming through the woods and down to the river and up the driveway, much farther than any of the ducks has ever traveled before, but we could see no sign of Fatsykins. Which was weird, because I had been home all day and hadn't heard any ruckus and the other ducks were as calm as can be, not acting as if they had all nearly avoided a hawk or fox. Z was pretty upset, and when C asked him if he wanted more ducks he said, "No, because they'll just get killed by something." This was our second duck loss in two years (which isn't bad, compared to our chicken fiasco). I didn't want more ducks, either, because they're messy and gross and a pain in the butt if we want to go away for a night or a weekend or a whole summer. But somehow C prevailed and three new little peepers made it to our house this week (did you know that baby ducks peep?).



They are, clockwise from left to right: Duck Norris (a giant Pekin), Daffodil (a buff Orpington), and Princess Layah (as in "Layer" with a Maine accent; there was some discussion about whether she should instead be Princess Layer, as in "Leia" with a Maine accent. There is a thing here about taking the R off the end of one word and putting it on the end of another. I, for example, am "Andree-er").

Now that they're here, peeping and making a mess and inconveniencing our weekends, even I have to admit they are pretty darn cute.

About Those Ducks

I've been meaning to write about the ducks for some time. I mentioned last time when I wrote about them that they're a lot more work than chickens. Since our chickens only lasted two months, I can only speak to the first two months of work, but here's where ducks made trouble: 

1. They grew a lot faster and bigger than the chickens (jumping out of their enclosure after just a couple of days; moved to an enclosure with taller walls, and jumping out of that, too).
2. So, so messy. They splash water everywhere, so their bedding had to be changed daily. When we moved them to their outside home, we didn't change the bedding every day and it grew maggots. So many maggots.
3. They're dumb. Like really, really dumb. (Z said, "If they were a knife in the drawer, they'd be the frosting spreader."). They run around in a clump like a kindergarten soccer team, following each other off a cliff if they get in a huff (or at least off a low retaining wall). They're as terrified of the people who feed and water them as they are of wild animals (and these are supposed to be calm breeds).

But they're (mostly) still alive, which is more than I can say for the chickens. This is the house we kept them in over the summer: Duck Knox.

It has 1/2-inch mesh screening and triple locks to keep out the predators. We did lose one to a raccoon while we were on vacation, because our house-sitter left them in their less-secure daytime enclosure overnight, and we almost lost one to a fox or coyote in early September. 

I woke in the middle of the night to a loud, quack-quack-quack-quack-quack, and ran outside in nighty and rubber boots. I'd grabbed a flashlight on my way out the door and by its light saw that we had somehow forgotten to shut the ducks up in Duck Knox. They were huddled inside, and by the beam of the flashlight, it appeared they were all inside and accounted for, but I could hear a rustling in the woods nearby and, as I was wrestling with the door, what should come waddling out but one of the white ducks, with a droopy wing and four bloody holes in her back. She hobbled over to the pool and stood there while I filled the night water and then made her way inside with the other ducks.

I didn't expect her to live out the night, but she was alive the next morning and over the next week or so, she kept her neck tucked to her back and moved around gingerly. I didn't see her eat or drink and the other ducks picked on her a little, and I still expected her to die (we decided not to try to treat the wounds, figuring our attempt to catch her and pour alcohol in her cuts would stress her out and be more hindrance than help to healing). But after a week or so, she was back to her old ducky self, and now we can't even tell which duck was the injured one.

C has built them a two-story duck castle in the garage for their winter quarters, and he ran electricity underground from the house so we can give them light and heat their water this winter. They've gotten a little less skittish and spastic (though they're still quite ridiculous).

And they've started to give us these:

For the last two weeks they've been dropping eggs here and there (sometimes even in the nest box). They're surprisingly good--with nice thick whites and golden yolks that cook to creamy perfection.

Duckies!

Introducing Mrs. Feddle, Duckie-Duck, Fatsykins, Buttercup, Striker, Sir Eatsalot, and Godzilla, aka Admiral Drake.

This was going to be a nice little post about our seven new family members.

And then C took E and Z to a baseball game and left me with the task of fetching the ducklings from their outdoor pen where they spend the day, put them into a box, and carry them back inside into the large Rubbermaid that is still their nighttime home.

By the time I rounded them all up (after finally giving up on keeping my work clothes clean and crawling into their shit-strewn pen), the D in "duck" had been replaced by F and an "er" added to the end of the word. With "mother" for a prefix.

Anyway, Z has been begging for a duck for months and months and months.

So I showed C a picture of a duck house, from a book that shall remain nameless, which suggested that eight full-grown ducks could live inside and be wheeled around the yard, eating bugs and fertilizing the lawn, with nary an iota of human input.

After C built the house and we informed E and Z that they were getting ducks for their birthday, I ordered a duck raising book which said, in not so many words, "Don't be fooled by charlatans and four-season gardeners who suggest that ducks are really easy to take care of. In fact, they're quite a lot more maintenance than chickens."

Call me had. 

But E and Z are really, really happy. 

I guess that's what it's all about, right?

In any case, say "hello" to our ducks.