Silver Linings Chronicles!

[thatsbirdietoyou]

Right? They just popped up about a week ago (these two will be 5 weeks on Monday.

I've been giving them pool time every day to encourage grooming and they are absolutely glowing afterward. It's strange, but I love listening to their bills click while they're preening. Very satisfying.

I was thinking that! Her coloring is so interesting. I certainly was not anticipating it, but it is very endearing.

This is the cutest comment. She absolutely does have a silver lining!

@Magnolia Ducks Sorry I forgot to answer your question. Everyone is still peeping, with little quacks and chortles coming out here and there. Too soon to tell raspy vs. quack. I did try to vent sex them the day after we brought them home, but it was far too difficult to tell. I'd love to have at least one drake! We purchased 7 females of different breeds from Metzer, so these 2 are the only wild cards.

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

If they are still peeping, they are likely drakes. But you should be ok on your ratio. You will know for sure in a couple weeks.

 

[thatsbirdietoyou]

If they are still peeping, they are likely drakes. But you should be ok on your ratio. You will know for sure in a couple weeks.

The more I think about it, the more this makes sense. I don't know that I would be able to tell such a stark difference between these two and the 7 littles, but now I do. I'm hearing big, spontaneous quacks (still lots of peeps) from the littles, but zero loud quacks (unless startled, and even then it is much softer) from the bigs.

 

[thatsbirdietoyou]

I just wanted to share my temporary feeder for the littles while we figure out another solution. I kept this plastic from a delivery last week, thinking I might be able to use it for something. I cut it, made small incisions and roped floral wire around. I smoothed the sharp edges and taped the plastic down/under. I noticed that they stopped using the long galvanized feeder when it was still half-full and I was getting irritated at their yelling when there was still food inside. Then I realized it was because they couldn't fit their entire head in anymore, it would get stuck at their face. They couldn't reach the food. Everyone seems to be very happy with this temporary setup!

And yes, I know they're too big for this brooder but we are working on finishing the coop this weekend.

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

They are too big. But oh so very cute.

 

[Canadian Wind]

Nice use of that take-out tray! They are going to be happy to be out of that bin, I', sure.

 

[thatsbirdietoyou]

We made a lot of progress today! Quite a few things to finish in the next week. Luckily the Littles and Bigs have had lots of outside time and pool time since I work from home full time. But I'm ready to have my living room back that is, until we get more muahahaha

 

[Canadian Wind]

Looking good! Sort of the same idea of what I want to do, since I have so many pallets laying around.

 

[thatsbirdietoyou]

Looking good! Sort of the same idea of what I want to do, since I have so many pallets laying around.

I honestly wasn't sure we would be able to make this work, but now that it is coming together I am thrilled. The only items that have to be/have been purchased are more hardware cloth (we used 1/4"), sand, and straw. I've already got the bucket for their water (going to drill circle holes all the way around to allow for full dunking without swimming).

The wood and pallets were from our local Buy Nothing group, my uncle, as well as a friend who works at a woodshop at a local university (scraps galore). The roof pieces (fiberglass, some galvanized steel as well) were free. I feel pretty lucky to have made the progress we did, and overall the cost will have been less than $200 for the whole thing. That includes an old chicken coop we repurposed to make a "quack shack" for the ducks inside of the house where I can lock them up at night to truly protect them from predators, which are rampant here.

I also started dumping their pine shavings outside, underneath our fig tree right next to the coop and the house. This way in the last few weeks, the predators have already started to come by and sniff around, which also means it won't be a complete surprise to the area when the ducks move outside. At least that is my hope!

Thanks for reading and following along

 

[Canadian Wind]

We have so much (s)crap laying around here. When my daughter bought the place two years ago, the previous owner was supposed to clean everything up. Well, he didn't. Some of it we can use (the wood and pallets, old construction stuff) but the rest is just pure junk.