Adding Ducklings to the Family

 A few weeks ago we learned that we would need to cull part of our chickens much earlier than we had anticipated. This led us to a search for new chickens. During that search we found a guy selling ducklings a mere 30 minutes from our house.
During that time we attended a picnic for preschool. At the picnic they had a small petting zoo which included a Pekin duck. The lady sang their praises and had us convinced we needed to add a couple to our family.

They live for about 10 years, so we can get attached. They make great companions, because they basically imprint within their first week. They can be extremely social and loyal; they are a lot like dog really plus if they're girls you get really good eggs.

We originally set out to buy 3-4 Pekin ducklings, but most of the eggs from his most recent batch did not hatch, so he only had a total of 3 ducklings -a Pekin, Rouen, and Cayuga.  We decided to take all of them.

 Here's the 3 of them huddled in the brooder. The brooder is on our back porch protected from the elements.

 This little Rouen duckling had a piece of shell stuck to his wing after s/he was born, so it may or may not end up being a bum wing all his life. Since they are flightless birds anyway, this won't have much effect on his quality of life. We've decided to call him Nemo.

On their first day at our house, these ducklings were entirely determined to cuddle with Claire (baby). I set them on the grass and they immediately ran onto the blanket toward her. I had to use my arm as a barrier to keep them away from her. Zeke (5) decided to name the black one Quackers, so the yellow one is Cheeze.

Did you know the safest and earliest way to distinguish male drakes from the female ducks is by their quack? The females will begin making the actual quacking sound around 4 weeks while the males will continue to have the high pitched chirp for several more weeks until it becomes a lower, raspy, monotone squeak.