Just now, the quiet outside was broken by one of the runners - probably Funf, sounds like her voice. Out of nowhere, I was startled to hear quite the little yell! It wasn't a quack, it was definitely a holler. Nothing preceded it, nothing followed it. All is well. What was going on with her?? Who knows? I doubt it's anything serious - maybe she was dreaming that she was telling Zehn off. So that made me think about other odd things the ducks do from time to time. Once, with some time on my hands apparently, I watched as Elfie grabbed a bite of food, trotted over to the water bowl, dabbled, trotted back to the food bowl, grabbed a bite of food, trotted back to the water bowl, dabbled . . . . for about twenty minutes. She's also the one who will let me pet her and pick her up, but won't take food from my hand. It's part of their personalities, to have little routines and quirks. What are some other benign and unexplainable things your ducks do?
Louie, my first and oldest Cayuga, likes to stand on my feet. He will give me duck hickies (I do know what that is about!) on my forearms,but the foot standing bit is much more casual. He does it perpendicular to me, facing either to my right or left, and tees to stand on one of my feet with both of his, uaully ending up with just one foot on mine. He'll look down and inspect the placement of his foot on mine, and just stand there. Sometimes he does this when I am standing, watering plants or just lost in thought, and sometimes when I am sitting down. If I move, he just waddles way, not distressed or anything. He just wanted to stand on my feet for a while.
Your telling of Funf and the loud outburst much reminds me of Stevie - Ray my blind girl. She relies heavily on her hearing- and sometimes when I am outside with them- Stevie will let out a very distinct call. Very loud... she is letting me know where she is and that she is trying to find me. She loves attention and to be picked up and cuddled and oftens gets impatient with me if I have been outside too long without giving her some special attention. Some other very endearing behavior I notice in my flock is that three older males always stand back at meal times letting the girls and the young ones eat first. What little gentlemen they are.
My drake patiently waits for my female to eat, before he gets his turn at the food bowl. Every evening my female goes below my bedroom window and quacks really loudly for about 1 full min. She is just letting me know she wants food and dinner time. Sometimes I will talk to them through the window when my windows are open, and they come up tilting their heads and wagging their tails. The best thing is when my Dalmatian puppy goes out side my drake chases his around and they play tag. It's so cute and they both seem to love it.
Oh, the sweetness of it all! Who knew how much personality they would have? Thanks for the vignettes!
My ducks will hear me yell at the dog and it sounds like they are laughiing their tails off. Quuuaaaaccckk quack quack quack quack quack! They also go crazy when we clean theiir pond. They jump in, flap around, do a few underwater laps and then shoot out of the tub, run around the coop, flap their wings and then jump back in to do it again. I LOVE my ducks. They are soooo amusing.
One of our LF free range ducks catches bugs and runs them to the flight pen dropping them at the wire for the ducks in the pen. I guess they think those locked up don't ever get bugs lol.
My drake patiently waits for my female to eat, before he gets his turn at the food bowl. My drake always waits until the girls have a swim before he gets in the pool. He dips his head and quacks around the edges of the pool while they are in there. When they do their funny fast swimming, then jump out of the pool, do a lap, jump back in thing, he runs laps with them & goes back to patiently waiting for them to finish their bath. At 4, after the bus drops the kids off, I usually sit on the porch or in the backyard with the ducks for a while. After about 3 days of this they began to DEMAND we take our field trip. Now, promptly at 4:05, if I am not out there yet, I hear my drake give his funny call he does when he sees/hears me and the girls launch a very impressive series of quacks that DOES NOT stop until I am seated in position on the rock wall. It is quite the cacophony. The bus was late and the ducks heard me out front with the neighbor. They got QUITE animated. My neighbor wondered what was going on and said he forgets I have the ducks because they are so quiet - usually. It is so funny that they seem to need me out there, the whole yard is fenced and they could go into the backyard anytime. They just like me to be there.
I think one of the most enjoyable things I can do with my ducks is get a duckie massage from them. I sit down close to them and after I have been there for a while one of the Runners will come over and start to nuzzle its bill on my skin. Once the others see this, then there is a little stampeed to come over and nuzzle the big evil thing... So, there I sit with at east 5 of the ducks doing this weird little nizzle and nibble thng on any exposed part of my body they can reach. If I am stooped over, they will nibble on my hair, nose and ears.. It does not hurt, it is more like they are gently trying to preen me as a group.. It feels so neat... Also, I can sit down and have full "quack quack" conversations with my Runner duck "Coco Puff"....
We have dachshunds. Used to be that just the dachshunds howled, barked, and danced with joy when husband gets home in the afternoon. Usually triggered by the front gate slamming shut. Now the dogs do their thing, and six ducks start quacking madly....we live in a rural area, but everybody knows when someone gets home! The gate slams and there is no silence until somebody greats the whole mob.
