2019 Spring Ducklings are here!

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I'm not feeling so well since yesterday afternoon, therefore the Duckling Update today:
Three ducklings are over 500 grams now, but the yellow-ringed White Layer seemed to have lost 43 grams - she panicked when i grabbed her yesterday and pooped a lot before she was on the scale.

Still the Buff Orpington, violet and the Magpie, blue are the light-weights.

 

[quackiemama]

Baaahaaaaa!!! There's no HEB here in West Virginia, no Fiesta, no Food-Town and no hispanic food stores!

Not here in Maryland either. I feel your pain

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

And another new development with the ducklings: They have moved into our garage yesterday. My wife had started to feed them meal-worms - lot's and lot's of meal-worms and as a result their poop turned stinky, very stinky! Yesterday the brooder and my office smelled like a men's bathroom after the festival in Woodstock… - Enough!
I built a new, larger brooder out of cardboard boxes, two Styrofoam-boards and a tarp. First i cut the cardboard-boxes open, taped them together and placed them on the Styrofoam-boards:

[As always, more pictures are available in the Spring Ducklings Album]
Then the whole thing was covered with the tarp to make it duckling (poop) proof and easy to clean:

Cover the tarp with pine shavings and add an infrared heat-lamp (without Teflon coating!), a larger feeder, their waterer, the heat-cave and you have 14 happy ducklings! - And a non stinky house!

Cleaning will be very easy: Remove everything from the brooder including the ducklings, grab all four corners of the tarp and lift it out like a giant trash-bag. Dump the content onto the compost pile, hose down the tarp and put everything back in.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Not here in Maryland either. I feel your pain

Yes, but in Maryland you have Wegmans!!! I love their fresh bread rolls! That's the only thing i am really missing from Germany, freshly baked »Brötchen«:

 

[WVduckchick]

Baaahaaaaa!!! There's no HEB here in West Virginia, no Fiesta, no Food-Town and no hispanic food stores!

There used to be some specialty markets downtown Charleston.

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

Baaahaaaaa!!! There's no HEB here in West Virginia, no Fiesta, no Food-Town and no hispanic food stores!

I knew that, just thought I would torture you a bit. Don't you have Piggly Wiggly?

 

[quackiemama]

Yes, but in Maryland you have Wegmans!!! I love their fresh bread rolls! That's the only thing i am really missing from Germany, freshly baked »Brötchen«:

Yes we do have Wegmans which is wonderful as well. Now I want some fresh warm bread!! There are definitely things about Texas I miss but the crab here though!!!

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

Here are more bad pictures of my ducklings. I was hoping to make another week in the brooder but looks iffy. They are getting pretty crowded in there. The crested one also doesn't seem to be doing well from a getting around standpoint. She can run around but immediately sits down to eat or drink. She doesn't sit with the others but a little apart. I need to keep an eye on her.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Her crest isn’t so big is she getting a good form of niacin? Might need to pick up some liquid B complex just in case.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I knew that, just thought I would torture you a bit. Don't you have Piggly Wiggly?

Yes we have Piggly Wiggly, but the bread there is the low quality sponge