DUCKS!!

Pip, pip, pip!!  Followed by Peep, peep, peep!!   We got 18 duck eggs from a friend in November!  We bought an incubator, and 26 days later, the excitement began!  I culled out 7 eggs a week after they started incubating since candling showed me infertile or dead eggs, and there was one I was iffy about so I left it in the incubator.  They hatched over a 3 day period.

One of the eggs did not even pip (that was the one I wasn't sure about), and one pipped, but didn't progress and the chick died in the egg.  We hatched out 9 beautiful ducklings!

Seriously, there are few things as cute as a day old duckling!  They are stinky little things, tho, and after a week in my sun room, they graduated to the garage, LOL!  

We continued to keep them warm and happy, visiting them often.  They are quite shy, and I'm trying to convince Kern to STOP chasing them so he can hold them.  I don't want stressed out ducks who won't lay when the time comes!!

After letting them play outside in the afternoons for about a week, we decided to move them into the duck house, and we fenced in a small, nice yard for them to play.  They LOVE the water, and we change it once or twice a day.  They can fowl the water pretty darn fast.  (LOL!! See what I did there?)

I ordered in some additional fencing and posts, and we were able to enlarge their yard.  They are SO happy!  I made sure to include the low area where water runs thru to the pond, and they are in duck heaven!  They are closing in on 8 weeks old very soon, and we are thinking about half of them are drakes.  I read online that ducks 'QUACK', and drakes are squeakers.  If that is true, we think we have 4 drakes.  I guess we will figure it out when the tail feathers curl!  I still call them all Ladies, because we will probably cull out most of the drakes.  People ask me what kind they are, and I tell the we have Frankenducks.  The friend who gave them to us has several kinds and they are all penned together.  We think they are mostly Cayugas, and one is very obviously a Grey Indian Runner.  The grey was the first one hatched, so we call her One Of Nine.  There are 6 black ones that are almost identical, so we couldn't figure out which one was Seven Of Nine.  Darn.  I've yet to see all my ducks in a row... they always stay in a tight little clump, LOL!

We have decided that we are going to order about 25 more ducks and 4 drakes of a variety called Golden 300 Hybrids.  They are supposed to be very calm, and excellent layers.  We will probably try to get them delivered at the end of Feb as day old ducklings.  We will definitely handle them more as babies so they won't be so shy.