- May 29, 2011
- 46
- 18
- 99
So I ended up getting a new batch of chicks after the spring fox got all of my last flock! When the feed store had its chicks it also gets ducks, so my wife and I had to have the 'I want ducks' conversation... of course she asked 'what if they are loud or messy??' to which I of course replied: 'then we kill them and eat them, no down side'.
So we got the ducks and they are getting along famously with their chicken cousins. Recently they got big enough to a) go outside and live in tier coop, and then b) wander the full (fenced) yard. So I started feeding them at the edge of our small pond, and putting out little water for them so they would be drawn to the pond to get their water, but also so the ducks would take to it. After about a week they did.
There is a shallow upper basin that has no fish in it, so they like that most. They can swim without being frightened by the brightly colored scary fish, as well as dive into the sediment that gathers there, for whatever is growing or hiding in there. Today they were up there and all their chicken friends were jealously walking along the as yet unfinished stone edge of the pond until one decided that if those 'chickens with the rounded beaks' can float in the pond, so can she. In the first picture below, you can just barely see her leaping from the stones into the pond. In the second, you can see her doing her best duck impression as she discovers that her belly doesn't make her float like her duck friends do!
Never seen anything like this, and since it made me laugh, I figured it might do the same for folks here.
Enjoy.
So we got the ducks and they are getting along famously with their chicken cousins. Recently they got big enough to a) go outside and live in tier coop, and then b) wander the full (fenced) yard. So I started feeding them at the edge of our small pond, and putting out little water for them so they would be drawn to the pond to get their water, but also so the ducks would take to it. After about a week they did.
There is a shallow upper basin that has no fish in it, so they like that most. They can swim without being frightened by the brightly colored scary fish, as well as dive into the sediment that gathers there, for whatever is growing or hiding in there. Today they were up there and all their chicken friends were jealously walking along the as yet unfinished stone edge of the pond until one decided that if those 'chickens with the rounded beaks' can float in the pond, so can she. In the first picture below, you can just barely see her leaping from the stones into the pond. In the second, you can see her doing her best duck impression as she discovers that her belly doesn't make her float like her duck friends do!
Never seen anything like this, and since it made me laugh, I figured it might do the same for folks here.
Enjoy.
