Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Duck Daddy and His Six Girls - Day 7

Baby ducks grow amazingly fast. Their little heads are now beginning to stick out over the edge of our makeshift plastic kiddie pool brooder, and the net we put over the top of it is getting too close to their heads. Of course, they eat amazing amounts of food, and drink more water than we do.

In the last seven days, we have changed their brooder to a larger one, and changed their waterer to a gallon version from the quart version which we were refilling every couple hours. I guess today's change will be to adapt the brooder to their height. Not sure how I will do that yet.

The little girls are becoming more and more familiar with us, and squeak for my attention when I leave the room. Yesterday was day 7. It was also Memorial Day.

I had to pick up a second bag of mash (this is the duck food which has been ground into fine grit). It is necessary for them to eat it as mash until they are about a month old. Note: If you are going to get your own cute little Indian Runner ducks, because they are so cute in the pictures here don't give them chicken feed starter mash!

Chickens are prone to disease, and typically are fed medicated starter mash. Ducks are typically disease resistant, and the medicated starter mash given to chickens is not good for them. It will compromise their immune systems,and make them more susceptible to disease. Remember that when you decide whether you should get chickens - maybe you ought to think about ducks instead. :-) Besides look how cute they are!

3 comments:

eli + ra said...

are you guys able to video tape them at all? i want to see them waddle!
*r

Pastor Phil said...

I haven't figured that out yet. Hopefully coming in the next day or two. Maybe without sound though. The squeaky quacks wouldd be nice to get along with the non waddle running of the runner ducks.

eli + ra said...

aww, can't wait! i wonder if we can have these with elijah's whole 'no bird' rule? if you hear anything about that in your duck travels let us know, we totally want some if we get that mountain pasture land we're after!