Our duckies enjoying running water and clean pools

Today was the first warm day in awhile. It follows two stressful days for our duckies. Two days ago a red tailed hawk tried to attack/ hunt them. The hawk was on the outside of the aviary on the back side. He/she was watching and attacking from the dogwood tree back there. The hawk tried several times to get through the fence. The duckies were safe inside and the hawk didn't even harm the fence. GrPaDuck went outside and shooed the hawk away. We are thankful for our predictor proof enclosure, but it was disturbing to us and extremely frightening to the duckies. The duckies all ran fast and jumped into there pool. During all the panicked running and jumping pretending to fly, Kouta our male pekin, slightly sprained his knee.

It was so sweet to see his best bud Darrick refuse to leave his side. Kouta was smart enough to stay in the big pool which took the weight off of his leg. Unfortunately, the big pool was a day away from being cleaned and no longer has a contact slow flow of water into it. By the end of the day, with Kouta not leaving the pool and Darrick faithfully at his side the pool was really yucky and Kouta's feathers were getting yucky.

So the next day, yesterday, Kouta and Beau spent the day in mandatory rest all day. We separated them to half of the "duck house" (with food and water of course) so Kouta would rest his leg. We didn't want him walking much and definitely didn't want him climbing in and out of the pool.

The day of rest seemed to have done its job. This morning Kouta is not limping.

So with warm weather, all the pools cleaned and the humans flock members letting the hose water run, the duckies had a wonderful morning.

Happy duckies

Our duckies continue to be healthy and happy. The cool bright and sunny weather suit our duckies very well. The drakes are out of season everyone in the little flock is getting along fabulously. We took a couple of pictures this morning. Our duck enclosure, aviary, still needs some work, however it is serving its purpose well. It gives our duckies plenty of room to roam play and forage and keeps them safe from the predators.

Today our duckies are 2 years old. Today is their hatch day!

Two years ago today our duckies were hatched and two days later they arrived from Metzer Farms via US Post Office. Our duckies were hatched on Tuesday October 12, 2010 and delivered to the local post office near Gonzales, CA for mailing that same day.  They arrived Thursday October 14, 2010.  Below is the first picture taken of them while still at the Post Office in Moseley, VA.

Here is a link to a youtube video of our duckies first week with us.

They're Here!  This is a link to our blog post from their arrival at our home.  You can see pictures of them on their first day with us on this post.

http://irishmamaduck.blogspot.com/2010/10/theyre-here.html

Happy Hatch Day to our feathered family members.  The pictures below were taken with a phone yesterday and are not good quality but you can see all of them.  We lost Keelyn due to illness and injury, but all the rest of our five duckies are happy and healthy.

Happy Quacks!!

Our beautiful pet duckies this morning.

A little nest

The song birds built a nest in a container under the roof of the duck house - so sweet

~GrMaDuck~
Sent from my iPhone

Kouta # 1 duckie

Kouta

digging for bugs

on his "throne"

Kouta is King of our tiny flock.

The older he gets (he is not yet two years old) the bossier he gets. I guess when you are at the top of the pecking order you have to work to stay there.

General he is a calm sweet boy.  He loves peas for treats but not as much as Missy.

He is a very large male (drake) Pekin. 

There is something endearing about Pekin personalities.  They can be quite expressive with head tilts and body posture.

~GrMaDuck~
sent from my iPhone
Kouta is our good King (even though he is bossy and competitive).

Queenie

Queenie is in the background
(that is Darrick in the front)

Queenie our female (hen) Cayuga is hard to get a good picture of.

She is by far our smartest duck. She is very calm and sweet but does NOT put up with being picked on. She deals with this by out smarting her temporary bully.

She is a great forager and her absolute favorite snack is a bug she has caught herself.


~GrMaDuck~
sent from my iPhone

Missy - white - Pekin

sweet Missy

leaves hanging off of her bill from digging in the mud

Our lovable spaz of duck hen. Missy is our cute Pekin female with a freckled bill. She LOUD - doesn't matter if she is happy or spazzing you WILL hear her.

Missy LOVES peas especially half frozen ones on a hot day.  She is our lover of all things food and she has a loud yummy quack to let us know that she likes her treats and food.


~GrMaDuck~
sent from my iPhone

Darrick

striking a pose

love his iridescent coloring

Darrick is our Cayuga drake.

He is a beautiful regal looking sweet boy.

As a hatchling and tiny duckling he had the hardest time but now is a strong healthy drake.

Darrick is a bit of an awkward dork when it comes to mating rituals. 

One of his favorite thing to do is run and chase Beau.  Darrick is our little duckie track star!



~GrMaDuck~
sent from my iPhone

Beau - still a very beautiful boy

the most beautiful plumage
right now with this dark tail
and white underbelly

Beau has the curliest tale of our drakes.
What a cutie!

A couple of good pictures of our Welsh Harlequin drake.

He had such beautiful plumage which is constantly varying.

He is a bossy drake now that he is no longer at the bottom of the pecking order.

He loves to chase and catch bugs and grasses are one of his favorite snacks.



~GrMaDuck~
sent from my iPhone

#1 and #2 ... pecking order

Kouta (Pekin drake (white) ) remains #1

Beau (welsh harelquin drake) - has fought his way to #2


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
sent from my iPhone
~GrMaDuck~

One of the many worries

One of the many things a pet duck care taker / human flock member worries about.
Is when one of our duckies separates from the rest of the flock. 


Missy had become "the prize" focal point of competition for the drakes.  And she is a bit worn out from being bossed around, chased, and treated aggressively when mated.

:-(

We want peace for them



Missy is to the far right tucked next to the bucket and back fence while all the rest hang out around the big pool and eat.


This too shall pass and we will keep a close watch over them.


Always so much to worry over.



~GrMaDuck~

duckie drama

There is always a bit of duckie drama when the boys are feeling competitive.

We separate the girls from time to time to give them a rest from the aggressive drakes.

During one of these times the girlie duckies were in the R&R pen and a big storm came through. The shade tarp stretched and filled with water and then crushed the R&R pen. The girlie duckies escaped unharmed physically but they were freaked out. The humans were upset and worried for them but a cooler calmer morning inside the aviary seemed to cure it all.

There are ups and downs of keeping watch and care over pet duckies.


This morning GrMaDuck hung out with the duckies during and after saturday morning girlie time. GrMaDuck and the duckies both needed this time together.

Even though competitive duckie drama continues.  Boys will be boys and drakes are boys :-)   and we love our silly competitive drakes very much!

Darrick in front - Kouta in back left

Beau in the front



girlies in the pool

every duckie hanging out at the "big" pool

Summertime

July is nearly over and it has been hot. Hot weather puts our duckies in a bad mood, especially the boys. Grumpy boys make things especially hard on the girls given our upside down ratio of 3 boys and 2 girls. However over all it has been an event-less month or so.

The girls are dealing with the boys and our little flock of pet duckies is general happy healthy and peaceful.

Here are a few pictures and videos.


We have company (including my animal loving niece) so the duckies might get more treats and attention this weekend.

My animal loving niece is here