Introducing myself, bragging about my duckies, and what kind of ducks are these?

[casportpony]

Welcome to BYC! Loved the videos!

-Kathy

 

[Lynn Manes]

Hi everyone! I am happy to be here. I have a little 5 acre hobby farm an hour east of Seattle. Two months ago I picked up 3 Silver Welsh Harlequin and 3 Cayuga ducklings from a feed store - and fell madly in love. I blocked off a little area of our house, lined it with towels and blankets, and sat with them almost constantly for two weeks. Then I spent the next 6 weeks taking them for walks in the fields, sitting under trees with them, and turning over rocks and logs to find the best bugs. Then comes sexual maturity. Four were male, despite my quacking lessons - and they decided that when you want to mate and the girl says no that means try harder. Yuck. I found a wonderful woman online trying to rehome her 3 females who were getting aggressively mated and damaged by her male ducks. So we traded boys for girls. That was a week ago and I am almost done weeping for my sweet little drakes. But they have a HUGE pond and will get to be free foraging happy boys with lots of drake and goose friends. Win, win, win. My girls love me. I love them. They come when they are called. Eat from my hand. Their favorite food is tomatoes. I make them oatmeal with almond milk and fruit every morning, and they have breakfast with me. (don't worry they eat balanced duck food too.) They spend hours gardening with me, following me about the property, sharing my meals, and napping on blankets. They aren't very good at knitting, but I give them credit for trying. They delight me every day. Now I have 1 Harlequin, 1 Cayuga, 1 White Crested (peking? or just White Crested?) and the other two.... I have no idea. The dark brown has a pinecone like pattern/color in her feathers and an adorable white bow tie. The light brown one is creamy white with creamy brown patches. They are a little smaller than the Harlequin. What do you think? My five girls coming when called yesterday:

My little Harlequin at 2.5 weeks making out with me:

One week old ducklings playing torpedo in the bath:

Love your pix and videos. I have 6 Welch Harlequins-3 are from one of my girls and my drake. I still don't know their gender but hoping they are girls. Welcome here.