We had ducklings hatch today! One very exhausted - advice appreciated! :)

[Jen1979]

                 Baby had mum to keep her safe, your dog needed mum to keep him safe.

He gave me the "I can't believe you abandoned me when the sky was falling in" look for the rest of the day too! I was in biiiig trouble

 

[Miss Lydia]

He gave me the "I can't believe you abandoned me when the sky was falling in" look for the rest of the day too! I was in biiiig trouble

Poor big baby dog. We had 2 mini dachshunds who would literally climb onto our heads [if we'd let them] during thunder storms there was no comforting them we would just have to put them into their crates. or wear dogs on our heads for a while.

 

[Jen1979]

  Poor big baby dog.   We had 2 mini dachshunds who would literally climb onto our heads [if we'd let them] during thunder storms there was no comforting them we would just have to put them into their crates. or wear dogs on our heads for a while.

Naww poor babies! That is a funny image though hehe!

The ducks thought the storm was the best thing EVER.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Naww poor babies! That is a funny image though hehe!

The ducks thought the storm was the best thing EVER.

Mine usually just stand around stiff as a board in the yard when it's storming or go get in the pool which is scary.

My mixed breed Annie barks at the thunder and my 3 minis don't seem to be fazed by storms like my minis I had before them. Thank goodness.
Rain is welcomed by most water fowl especially if there is mud after. lol

 

[Jen1979]

Mine usually just stand around stiff as a board in the yard when it's storming or go get in the pool which is scary.

My mixed breed Annie barks at the thunder and my 3 minis don't seem to be fazed by storms like my minis I had before them. Thank goodness.
Rain is welcomed by most water fowl especially if there is mud after. lol

Mr Duck Norris was flapping his wings and standing up straight in the middle of the yard. I was frwaking out because there was a fair bit of lightning around! I kept yelling at them to stop being lightning attractors! :O

Thank goodness my little old Staffy is not fazed by storms. She couldn't care less! My Pitbull x Bull Mastiff is the sook - he literally had to have all of his legs wrapped around me all night!

Our backyard is looking a lot like a mud put right now....duck heaven!

 

[Miss Lydia]

Mr Duck Norris was flapping his wings and standing up straight in the middle of the yard. I was frwaking out because there was a fair bit of lightning around! I kept yelling at them to stop being lightning attractors! :O

Thank goodness my little old Staffy is not fazed by storms. She couldn't care less! My Pitbull x Bull Mastiff is the sook - he literally had to have all of his legs wrapped around me all night!

Our backyard is looking a lot like a mud put right now....duck heaven!

Well if it had been winter he would have made a nice warm blanket. lol
you know I guess it happens water fowl getting struck by lightening but I've never heard of it before have you? Maybe they have their own lil lightening protectors implanted inside of them.

I bet the ducks are loving the mud which means you are now obligated to taking more pics and putting them on the muddy ducks thread.

 

[Jen1979]

LOL yes if it wasn't 30C that night having a big fur dog snuggler would have been lovely

I haven't ever heard of any getting struck by lightning, no. Maybe they do have an inbuilt protection system of some sort

I am quite sure I'll have a team of muddy posers all fighting to be the star of the muddy duck thread! Haha!

 

[Miss Lydia]

LOL yes if it wasn't 30C that night having a big fur dog snuggler would have been lovely

I haven't ever heard of any getting struck by lightning, no. Maybe they do have an inbuilt protection system of some sort

I am quite sure I'll have a team of muddy posers all fighting to be the star of the muddy duck thread! Haha!

Look forward to it.

We use to let our dachshunds sleep with us then I went through change on my gosh having all that hot fur was not fun so they have their own beds now.

 

[Jen1979]

Well, I thought if update with a new "look how much the duckling has grown" pic!

We're having issues introducing the duckling to our male, it's fine with all of the females. We've tried twice to let them freerange together but our male (Norris) is crazily trying to mate with mumma duck (I guess since he hasn't had the chance for so long!) and chases her all over the yard. We then saw him grabbing the duckling by the neck. It happened again when they all had a swim together and we promptly took him away. So our plan at the moment is to have mum and baby separated from everyone else until the baby is big enough to protect itself against him, which I guess will be a few months! We've given mum and baby access to the enclosure and pool all during the day, which they're loving - baby is confident getting in and out of pool on their own etc) and I've bought another big pool for the other ducks so they can free range during the day. At night mum and baby go back into their small enclosure and the others go into the larger part of the enclosure. I'm not sure if I'm doing all this correctly!

We still don't know if the duckling is male or female. It's 4.5 weeks old, still peeping, but making a hoarse quacking noise now. I'm not hearing any real quacks yet and I can't remember when my other ducks started quacking - I only know one started quite early and one a bit later, maybe 5 or 6 weeks. The duckling is super talkative but I guess I'll have to wait a bit longer to find out!

I tried to take a video of the noise it's making now but it's a little hard to hear with mumma duck and Norris talking away too!

 

[Miss Lydia]

Well, I thought if update with a new "look how much the duckling has grown" pic!



We're having issues introducing the duckling to our male, it's fine with all of the females. We've tried twice to let them freerange together but our male (Norris) is crazily trying to mate with mumma duck (I guess since he hasn't had the chance for so long!) and chases her all over the yard. We then saw him grabbing the duckling by the neck. It happened again when they all had a swim together and we promptly took him away. So our plan at the moment is to have mum and baby separated from everyone else until the baby is big enough to protect itself against him, which I guess will be a few months! We've given mum and baby access to the enclosure and pool all during the day, which they're loving - baby is confident getting in and out of pool on their own etc) and I've bought another big pool for the other ducks so they can free range during the day. At night mum and baby go back into their small enclosure and the others go into the larger part of the enclosure. I'm not sure if I'm doing all this correctly!

We still don't know if the duckling is male or female. It's 4.5 weeks old, still peeping, but making a hoarse quacking noise now. I'm not hearing any real quacks yet and I can't remember when my other ducks started quacking - I only know one started quite early and one a bit later, maybe 5 or 6 weeks. The duckling is super talkative but I guess I'll have to wait a bit longer to find out!

I tried to take a video of the noise it's making now but it's a little hard to hear with mumma duck and Norris talking away too!

Hi Jen thanks for posting back and letting us see how darling your baby is and grown up so much. Your doing the right thing not sure at this point if you have drake or duck but keeping them separate from the drake for now is the best way, especially since Norris is in hormonal over load being summer. Give the duckling a couple more weeks then hopefully you'll know for sure. Looks like you have a really nice set up for them all.