23 ducklings in one clutch?!

[Shabby Chic-Hens]

Have you found homes for these bundles of joy yet?

 

[Chicalina]

Yes I just take some out of the freezer and put them on the side for an hour and they defrost. Or put them in a colander under the hot tap for a minute or two.

I always say that my chickens are my stress relief! I totally get what you mean. Half an hour sat in my garden watching "chicken TV" is so relaxing and nothing else seems so important that it should stress me out any more.

Along with your entertaining waterfowl families out there, the addition of a vast body of water to look at must be super calming too, I imagine.

How lucky you are to have this on your doorstep!

 

[chris330r]

Yes I just take some out of the freezer and put them on the side for an hour and they defrost. Or put them in a colander under the hot tap for a minute or two.

I always say that my chickens are my stress relief! I totally get what you mean. Half an hour sat in my garden watching "chicken TV" is so relaxing and nothing else seems so important that it should stress me out any more.

Along with your entertaining waterfowl families out there, the addition of a vast body of water to look at must be super calming too, I imagine.

How lucky you are to have this on your doorstep!

It's a whole menagerie out there with egrets, crows, herons, fish, turtles and i've even seen an otter swimming around in there once, and it's very relaxing to just sit back there and watch them all. I would love to have chickens out there to watch too but I don't think they're wild and feral like the ducks are?
And each January/February dozens of pelicans descend onto the lake for a while. I have no idea where the heck they come from or where they go afterwards, but they seem to like it here in the winter months.

Have you found homes for these bundles of joy yet?

I would love to find homes for some of them because I fear these 18 are going to multiply like rabbits and the pond will be filled with hundreds of ducks pretty soon lol. I'm praying as they reach adulthood some will fly off to other places. They're feral so the pond and the park next door is where they pretty much make their home base.

 

[Chicalina]

It's a whole menagerie out there with egrets, crows, herons, fish, turtles and i've even seen an otter swimming around in there once, and it's very relaxing to just sit back there and watch them all. I would love to have chickens out there to watch too but I don't think they're wild and feral like the ducks are?
And each January/February dozens of pelicans descend onto the lake for a while. I have no idea where the heck they come from or where they go afterwards, but they seem to like it here in the winter months.

You have "Duck TV" with none of the associated work cleaning up after them, and ducks are disgustingly filthy to keep! Win win

And Wow! Pelicans!!!

 

[Kiki]

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[chris330r]

This thread was nominated for BYC's favorite thread. Please vote for it here:
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Wow, i'm glad many people found the thread entertaining! Thanks for the nomination!!

 

[chris330r]

Latest update on the flock:

They're all full fledged adults at this point and now FLYING!! The males are so big and lazy too lol. They just lumber around and don't care to fly...maybe because they're so heavy? But the females are flying nicely and really seem to be enjoying it.

I watched a few of them just making short flights around the pond and having fun, but the males just can't be bothered with getting themselves off the ground so they just waddle everywhere they go.

They all just had a bath in the pond and flapping their wings everywhere. At first I saw a couple of them rowing their wings really fast in the water from the kitchen so I ran out because that's what King duck was doing back when he was trying to get away from the killer duck.

But they were all rowing their wings in the water and seemed to be just having fun and being playful. At first I thought another death fight was happening and the babies were turning on each other!

Here they are after getting out of the water and drying off. You can see them flapping their large wings. I also got a close up of Mama too. She goes off by herself for a while at this point and the babies seem to break up in groups....the males with the males and females with females. Interesting how they do that. Males go off one way and the females go off another. Here's the latest photos...the males tower over Mama now!

 

[Miss Lydia]

They are gorgeous and look all grown up now. Thank you so much for sharing this with us from the beginning till now. Hope mama gets a good rest over winter before she starts again.

 

[Canadian Wind]

They're looking great! Thanks for sharing.

How's the new batch of babies?

 

[chris330r]

They're looking great! Thanks for sharing.

How's the new batch of babies?

The new batch of chicks are growing quickly. The Mama waits for the flock of 19 and Grandma to leave before she brings her kids over and I have to quickly feed them before the 19 come charging come back because as soon as they see me throw food out for them, they all run and fly back so quickly that I have to be fast.

And in addition to those, there's ANOTHER batch of 8 that seemed to have hatched this week...the chicks are so tiny and it's from Grandma duck's other daughter. Grandma lowers her head and charges at her daughter to leave, however she only gently nudges the baby chicks in a loving way with her beak. Maybe she knows they're her grandchildren? But her daughter she runs at to get the hell out of here lol.

The only drawback of all these new ducks is there's a lot of droppings outside my patio door where I keep the trash bins and i'm hosing it down daily. I need to put up a small garden fence to keep them out of that concrete area because it's disgusting. They seem to like laying on the concrete and there's shade there too, but I can't have them make it their home!

This has been a very unusually fertile breeding season. Hopefully these Mamas will take a very long break from their extracurricular activities!