jonhi
Chirping
I have been lurking here for a while, planning to get ducks. I was talking to a neighbor about it, trying to plan my coop and run, and he offered to let us have some from his first hatch. He's never hatched them before, they always just eat the eggs, but they lost most of their ducks to a raccoon last year. They only were left with a male Khaki Campbell and a female Swedish Blue. So when their Swedish Blue started acting really broody they decided to let her do her thing. She ended up with ~40 eggs, and they took the first 14 and put them in an incubator. She's been sitting on the remainder very diligently.
Wednesday and Thursday the incubated eggs hatched so Friday night I went to pick them out and bring them home. Only half hatched so I got to take home two. (I might get some from the clutch she's sitting as well, we'll see.) There was one very dark brown, three medium brown, two gray, and one almost all yellow. The browns and grays had yellow chests and varying degrees of yellow eyeliner, pretty typical coloring from what I've seen for Swedish Blue ducklings. We took a medium brown with thin penciled eyeliner and black feet and the grayest of the bunch, which has black toes but yellow webbing. Their boys named them Quacky Chan and Gray. Well, there is some dispute among the boys on Gray, but I think we'll keep those names for now at least.
Right now they are doing well in a plastic tote brooder inside the house. They were a bit worn out when they got home, but they settled in and after a ~1.5hr power nap in the mid-range of the heat lamp they were up and exploring and drinking and eating. I was pretty worried for that first bit, but I think they were just recovering from the scare of being separated and coming home. The cottage cheese cup with cut top for water has been working well and I'm thinking of duplicating it for the food container, as Quacky is living up to the name and doing his(?) own stunts. By which I mean constantly climbing on the food and water.
Anything else about me? I like running, and my wife and I have a girl and another on the way. My daughter loves them, so that's a plus! But she's not old enough to know to be gentle yet.
Wednesday and Thursday the incubated eggs hatched so Friday night I went to pick them out and bring them home. Only half hatched so I got to take home two. (I might get some from the clutch she's sitting as well, we'll see.) There was one very dark brown, three medium brown, two gray, and one almost all yellow. The browns and grays had yellow chests and varying degrees of yellow eyeliner, pretty typical coloring from what I've seen for Swedish Blue ducklings. We took a medium brown with thin penciled eyeliner and black feet and the grayest of the bunch, which has black toes but yellow webbing. Their boys named them Quacky Chan and Gray. Well, there is some dispute among the boys on Gray, but I think we'll keep those names for now at least.
Right now they are doing well in a plastic tote brooder inside the house. They were a bit worn out when they got home, but they settled in and after a ~1.5hr power nap in the mid-range of the heat lamp they were up and exploring and drinking and eating. I was pretty worried for that first bit, but I think they were just recovering from the scare of being separated and coming home. The cottage cheese cup with cut top for water has been working well and I'm thinking of duplicating it for the food container, as Quacky is living up to the name and doing his(?) own stunts. By which I mean constantly climbing on the food and water.
Anything else about me? I like running, and my wife and I have a girl and another on the way. My daughter loves them, so that's a plus! But she's not old enough to know to be gentle yet.
Glad you joined.
