Debs, I love you. No kidding. I could just stay on this thread all day. I've been so scarce on BYC lately with work and ZILLOW and sleep that now is my first time on this thread.
It's a good thing you included the Julie warning!!! Might also want to contact her local air traffic controller.
Agreed! Everything goes better with JBSeeing the new 'lings has been awesome... seeing Julie Bird see the new 'lings has been highly entertaining...
I believe they have grown since yesterday. So adorable ..Good morning all. Day one cleaning the brooder was a snap! Two towels out, two towels in, new water, top off food, done! Metzer lists KC as "nervous" same as a Runner. Wow! When reaching in the brooder, Allie and Latte are pretty calm, but Casey is like a flash of lightning and is very hard to catch. They are all great for cuddle sessions though. (Probably because they like the warmth.) Yesterday evening my wife was tracing the mesh of the brooder with her finger. This caused all the 'lings to have an obsession with poking and pulling around the zipper... Good CallI didn't want to see if the carrier's warranty covered 24/7 picking by 3 ducklings with nothing better to do so I devised a toy for them. I took an old lunch meat container, cut a couple holes through it and poked the ends of a bandanna out each side then sealed the rest of the bandanna back in the container like so:
It was a real hit and completely distracted them from pulling all the stitches out of the carrier. Now I can't see them finding a way to kill themselves quickly with this, but ducks are clever so maybe one of you can warn me if you think there is a reason this toy is unsafe. The bandanna is fairly new so quite strong and there is NO way they can swallow the whole thing. I doubt they can quickly tear a strip out big enough to be a problem but small enough to swallow. (If there is ANY visible damage to the bandanna, I would either replace it or abort this toy.) There are no sharp edges and the holes are just barely big enough for them to stick their heads through so there is no way they can do that while the bandanna is in there and in two days they wouldn't be able to stick their heads through if the bandanna wasn't there. Anyway, they like to jump on top of it and tug on the bandanna and it seems like a good toy to keep them occupied.
Here is a crew shot from right after I cleaned their brooder and put them back in:
Left to Right: Allie, Latte, Casey.
Most of Allie's back gunk is cleaned up and she is doing great. I have several cameras that are the same as the ones I use for the back yard (that will be installed around the rest of the house once I am ready to go down in the crawlspace and route cables). I temporarily hooked one up over the brooder so my wife can peek in on them from workI already had the camera so it didn't cost me anythingThat also means I am recording everything so if I find something amiss, I will be able to find out what happened. For example right now, from my computer, I can see they are taking a nap...
