A little nest

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

~GrMaDuck~
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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

No power = no well pump = no water

The hardest thing about no electricity is keeping the ducks clean and comfortable. No power = no well pump = no water

We actually keep about 10gal of drinking water and 3 6 gal jugs for washing and flushing around the house just in case, but duckie care requires much more water than we can store.

Here are a few pictures of cooling off the duckies with frozen peas and ice cold lettuces

Silly Queenie

Summer has arrived and so has the hot humid weather.

We put a dish in one of the duck house nest boxes to give them water over night and still limit the big splashy mess they usually make with water.

I think Queenie had a very strong opinion about this though. I am not sure yet if she thinks it needs to go or maybe she thinks it was only for her, since it was in a nest box) and was standing guard over it. In any case she cracked us up this morning.

We also added a small tarp for extra shade. They are of course a little afraid of it (it is new - a change). We are still working (slowly) on other shade improvements and vegetation improvements. The duck aviary will be a constant work in progress.

Peace and delight

We got to spend a good part of the first part of the day just hanging with the duckies.

a coyote not a fox (updated post)

Stock picture of Coyote from the web

Oh no! A bold fox (correction: coyote) in our backyard (garden side) in the bright morning light this morning. While we don't mind a little rodent control, we worry for our duckies. As we went off to work we were hoping and praying our duck aviary (enclosure) is as predator proof as we designed to be.

Our duckies look so innocent ... we hope they have a good day playing in the rain we are supposed to get and that the preditors stay away.

SCARY CORRECTION!!
GrMaDuck thought it looked like a gray fox but it's face was more dog like, so I we looked up pictures on the web.  It was a coyote!  (see top of updated post)
It was not scared of us but when GrMaDuck charged at it yelling it trotted away.
It was coyote that took our first feathered family members, so we are worried.  Of course we didn't have the bigger safer duck enclosure that we have now.

cooling off on a hot spring morning

It is a hot spring morning.  So we decided to spray them with hose on the gentle shower setting.  (We didn't get any pictures of this).  They loved it.  The drakes would side step just to stay in the right place to get the most of the cooling spray.

Then we propped it to shower over the pool and back of the "aviary".  Being Saturday the girls were given their weekly girlie duckie time in the pool without the boys.   The boy duckies enjoyed digging in the drainage "stream" behind the aviary. 

Then everybody got some time together to hang out at the pool and enjoy the soft shower spray from the hose.

Then we cleaned out the pool (again) and once again split up the boys and girls.  The girls look like they are getting bumble foot again.  With the weather warmer, the ground is harder, and the boys really are not generous about sharing the pool, so our girlie duckies don't get to clean their feet very often.  It is one of the reasons we make sure they get "no boys allowed" pool time on Saturdays.

The boys got more dig and forage time.

Beau cracked us up.  He lied down in the "drainage" stream and dug in and drank the water that was flowing down.  He was doing his best not to miss anything.  It was so funny to watch.

We love our funny duckies.

Beau



Darrick



Kouta



Missy



Queenie