TADPOLES!
A couple weeks ago I adopted six adult anconas and yesterday I picked up three adult khaki campbells. In my efforts to make them use to each other and myself, it's been treat feeding galore! My anconas have come to expect treats now when they see my ( still won't eat out of my hand though
) and love frozen peas and the worms I collect when I work on digging their pond. But today I wanted an extra special treat since the new ducks are on the other side of the fence... what to do...
We just so happen to have a neglected, tadpole overrun pool in our yard. So the idea came to collect some tadpoles! We gathered around 50 to start (there are a lot of tadpoles out there...) and put them in a 3x3 foot shallow pan with about an inch of water for the anconas and 10 or so in a dog dish for the khakis. The anconas were strangely nervous of the pan with water at first (they will come running at the sound of me filling anything with water usually!) but once they discovered the tadpoles, they were devoured in minutes! It was so fun to watch. The khakis never showed interest in the tadpoles, but I left the dish in their enclosure and I'll see later if they ate them or not.
The tadpoles were such a hit! I'll probably do this a couple more times until we clean the pool (and all those tadpoles inevitably die anyway... the ones that were laid in our creek can stay
) in a couple weeks. Then on cleaning day, I'll probably have so many tadpoles to collect I can share with the neighbors! Or freeze them? We've already got 30 or so in the house that we're watching develop that we'll release to the creek later
As with men, dogs, and just about any other animal... food is the way to the heart!
I also laid out 5 cement pavers in the ducks yard and every couple days I'll flip one and reveal tasty bugs, usually potato bugs and ants, but sometimes a fat worm or centepiede! The anconas love this and get really excited when I walk over towards one now. It amazes me how quickly they can clear the bugs!
