Ducklings

A ducky delight!

Posted by kenleighacres on June 24, 2010
Posted in: Ducklings, Ducks. Tagged: . 6 Comments

Thanks to all of the rain we have been given this year (trying to stay positive) we still have a lot of water in our ‘pond’ in the pasture.  It is just a seasonal pond and is usually dry by this time of year.  I love all of the wildlife that it attracts during the winter and spring – geese, ducks, frogs, tadpoles, blue heron, swallows, and killdeer.  It is also the perfect place for the mallard ducklings that my husband is raising.  They have to be locked up at night, thanks to the many predators we have, but it is a great place for them to spend their days.

So, I let them out of their pen yesterday morning and headed to the pond.

Can you see my helper hiding behind the tree?

She is such a serious girl, but it makes me laugh when I watch her herd the ducks – she NEVER stands up – she belly crawls the whole time 🙂

The ducklings are eager to get to the pond!

and once they get there, they are off! 

Doing what ducks do best – dibbling and dabbling and digging and dipping.  They have a lot to say while they are taking care of their ducky duties and so fun to watch. 

Kate couldn’t take her eyes off them either.

I am amazed at how well they blend into the background!  Truly a ducky delight!

Something doesn’t belong

Posted by kenleighacres on July 3, 2009
Posted in: Chickens, Ducklings. Tagged: , . 2 Comments

Look!!!  We have baby chicks.

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You may think it is the black one that doesn’t belong, but look closer…

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one of them is a baby duck 🙂

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The mama is being great to all of her adopted babies.  None of these babies are actually ‘hers’.  They are all from eggs from other hens.  She had her mind set on being broody and I felt bad for her, so I gave her some fertile eggs.  She has 5 chicks and 1 duckling.

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Baby chicks aren’t as fun to play with as ducklings, but he was still enjoying them.

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There’s a bunch of pretty colors – all the way from solid yellow to solid black.  I have no idea what they will turn out like, except for the duckling 🙂  All of the chicks are some sort of silkie cross – they are the best mamas.

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The whole family had to be moved because we have several camping trips on the calendar and the pen that the chickens are in isn’t chick proof.  They can fit through the smallest crack!  My brother made these off the ground pens for me when we had the raccoon attack.  I have two that are empty and they are the perfect place for a mama chicken and her brood.

Now that all of the babies are hatched and they are in a safe house it is time… 

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for…

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a…

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little…

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nap.

Have a great 4th of July everyone!

A Sunday morning on the farm

Posted by kenleighacres on May 10, 2009
Posted in: Call Ducks, Ducklings, Ducks, Farm Life, Jacob Sheep. Tagged: , , . 5 Comments

The sun has come out and it was a beautiful morning to go out and take pictures while I was doing chores.

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Eclipse was one of the first girls to greet me.  Almost everybody is weaned now. 

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These boys must have had a party last night!  Actually they had to work for a living yesterday.  They are older wethers and have a pretty easy life here.  The only requirement is that they grow a nice fleece – except yesterday I used them for a couple herding lessons and it looks like it wore them out.   

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The lush green grass is having a nice effect on everyone.  Reno is maturing nicely.

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Next it was time to turn all the lambs out.  There are a few ewes with lambs still and some yearlings, but the rest are lambs. 

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Nothing like having lambs 4 months apart!  The lamb in front is Venture and the one in back is Kizmet. 

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The little guys are almost getting lost in the grass!  The new lambs finally have names and I got some good pictures of them today – introducing…

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Jester

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Dignity

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Kizmet

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Magoo had to check them out. 

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They were having a great time playing outside. 

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My boy – Wrangler.

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We had 13 more ducklings hatch on Wednesday – 4 white and 9 gray (mallard colored).

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So, the teenagers moved outside.  They still have a light to stay warm at night and seem to be doing well.  You can see their feathers starting to come out. 

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Last, but certainly not least is Major.  He turns 15 soon and still takes his position as farm manager seriously.  He has delegated the security detail to Kate now because his eye sight and hearing aren’t what they used to be. 

Enjoy your Sunday and Happy Mother’s Day!

New Arrivals – a little early :)

Posted by kenleighacres on April 29, 2009
Posted in: Call Ducks, Ducklings, Ducks, Jacob Sheep, Lambing. Tagged: , . 4 Comments

We had several new arrivals today, that I wasn’t quite ready for.  I ordered some Magpie Call ducks from Faith Valley Waterfowl  and they were scheduled to arrive tomorrow.  The post office isn’t known for their speedy deliveries, so I didn’t have ‘running to the post office’ on my list of things to do today.  I got a call at 11:00 saying that my ducks had arrived!  So, I ran up to my local post office – the location where I have picked up my ducks in the past.  The look on the postmaster’s face was priceless when I told him that I was there to pick my ducks up 🙂  He very nicely informed me that he did not have any ducks in the back.  I called the 800 number for the Post Office and gave them the tracking number and they said that there were 3 locations that they could be at – what???  Shouldn’t the tracking number tell them exactly where the package was!  Luckily, they were at the location I called first.  So, we headed in the opposite direction and picked up our new ducks. 

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I love this color!

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Here you can see just how little the call ducks are.  This little gal is 6 weeks old and will get a little bigger, but not a lot.  It was nice they were able to get out of the box a day early! 

Remember the wooly girls…

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here is Symphony post shearing.  I didn’t think they were due until next week, but when I went out to do evening chores, she had a lamb with her!

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Such a good mama!  He was dry and had a full belly. 

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She is very protective!  He has a beautiful fleece.  It is silly how excited my son and I were to have a new lamb after just having 40 of the little boogers!  They sure are cute 🙂

‘Like a duck to water’

Posted by kenleighacres on April 25, 2009
Posted in: Call Ducks, Ducklings, Ducks, Felt Scarf, Felting. Tagged: , , , , . 5 Comments

The idiom definition is that if someone has a natural talent for something and enjoys it, they take to it like a duck to water.

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After watching our 2 day old ducklings jump in the bowl of water and start bobbing and swimming, I completely understand where this saying comes from.

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These are the babies that we have raised, so it isn’t like they have watched their mom swim.  As soon as I set the bowl down they ran over and jumped in. 

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You may have noticed that there are a few more ducklings in these pictures – that is because the second mama that hatched 11 babies turned out to be a somewhat negligent mother.  She would keep her babies warm as long as they were under her, but she wasn’t going to go look for them.  Unfortunately, we lost one of the babies the second night, so we have lots of babies in the brooder now.

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Which means we had to make some adjustments – first item, bigger brooder.  Thanks to my husband that was a fairly easy task. 

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Second item – come up with a way to keep the brooder dry!!!  Ducks LOVE water 🙂  They go through the quart of water within an hour.  They don’t drink all of it, they sit there and dabble in it and play in it.  Unfortunately, that means there is a lot of water everywhere.  We had this tray out in the barn, I’m not sure what it is really meant for – but it works awesome.  I have to dump it out once a day, but the rest of the pen is staying clean and DRY!!!

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Since she asked – here are some pictures especially for Lora 😉

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He loves his babies!

Going back to the title of this post – I have also discovered that my son has taken to felting like a duck to water.

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He loves playing with the soapy water.

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He helped with one of my classes a couple weeks ago and everybody got a kick out of him!

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Here is the scarf that he was working on in the pictures above.  He did 95% of it by himself and did a great job! 

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and this is the snake he made.  A very fun project for kids and adults 🙂

Lots of Ducklings!

Posted by kenleighacres on April 20, 2009
Posted in: Call Ducks, Ducklings, Ducks. Tagged: , . 9 Comments

We are up to 20 ducklings with 3 more nests being set on!  I never thought my ducks would hatch this many babies.

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The mama of this nest hatched 11 eggs!!!  She is just a little thing, so I took 4 of the ducklings and we will raise them in a brooder under a heat lamp.  I was concerned that she wouldn’t be able to keep them all warm at night. 

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My son is having a blast with them. 

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I helped him set up a cozy little brooder for them.  We used some wool for a bed and they enjoy snuggling on it.  The fifth duckling is from another nest where he was the only one that hatched.  Poor little guy needed some brothers and sisters to hang out with.

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It was such a nice day today, we took them outside and they had fun putting everything in their mouth!

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The really fun thing is to peep at them and have them follow you!

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These are the little guys that hatched out earlier in the week.

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Have a good day!

 

Spring has arrived!

Posted by kenleighacres on April 16, 2009
Posted in: Call Ducks, Ducklings, Ducks. Tagged: , , , , . 4 Comments

Stepping outside this morning I was hit with the sounds and smells of spring.  My spirits were immediately lifted!  I am not a winter person and the cold and wet were getting old – we had snow two mornings ago!  The temperature is supposed to be close to 80 this weekend! 

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The swallows were having turf wars and everyone wanted this birdhouse!  We had a dozen flying and dive bombing each other.  They are so much fun to watch.

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The killdeer were also having turf wars – everyone is looking for their place!  My son had a hard time understanding why they are called killdeer.  He was wondering if they ‘kill’ ‘deer’.  I looked up killdeer on wikipedia and their name comes from the sound they make. 

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This handsome guy has made our little pond home while his mate is sitting on a nest somewhere else.  We were hoping she would set on a nest here, but she must have found somewhere a little less crowded.  Llama, sheep, ducks – maybe not the best place to raise baby geese 🙂

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and the best part of today was what I found under this mama duck…

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Ducklings!!!  8 of the 11 hatched.  This little guy is the spokesman for the group. 

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He was ready to leave the nest and get on with things! 

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My son wanted to love and cuddle each one – me too! 

Have a great day!

What a boring job!

Posted by kenleighacres on March 27, 2009
Posted in: Call Ducks, Ducklings, Ducks. Tagged: , . 4 Comments

My mama ducks amaze me!  Sitting on a nest of eggs for 26 days is just a little too mundane for me 🙂 but they seem very happy to be doing it. 

During their swimming, eating, stretching break today, I was able to take some pictures of their nests.  I provided a little bit of straw for them to use and they scoop a nest in the ground and pull some of their down out to insulate the eggs.  When they leave the nest they cover their eggs up to keep the eggs warm while they are gone.   

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Pulling the top layer off reveals all of the eggs.

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This nest has 13 eggs and belongs to…

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the little snowy call duck hen in the middle.  She was sitting on a nest of eggs that were due to hatch a couple weeks ago, but silly me I looked at the eggs using a candler and removed the eggs that weren’t fertile.  She got very upset with me for taking some of her eggs and would not sit on the nest anymore.  She moved to the other house and made herself another nest and laid more eggs.  Now I know that she can count 🙂 and will leave all 13 eggs in the nest! 

This nest contains 11 eggs…

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and belongs to the super mama…

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Here she is with some of her babies from last year.  She hatched two different clutches last year. 

 Baby ducks are just the cutest!

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This is the third mama duck and I don’t know how many eggs are in her nest because she is very dilligent.  She must take breaks, but I haven’t seen her in a few days. 

All of the eggs are due to hatch in 11-13 days.  I’ll post pictures as soon as their mamas bring them out of the nests.

Aren’t they the cutest…

Posted by kenleighacres on April 17, 2008
Posted in: Call Ducks, Ducklings. 2 Comments

We have baby ducks!  We have 3 at the moment with more due to hatch tomorrow afternoon and a couple more batches over the next couple of weeks.  We are using broody banties, incubators, and the mama ducks when they agree to sit on the nest 🙂  I could sit and watch these little guys all day – they are so funny!