Wednesday, July 23, 2008

A trio of ducklings!!

Today has been an exciting bird-filled day. This is what I woke up to this morning:
Duckling #3!

My husband and I have been trying to encourage Jasper to fly away and make friends with other doves (well, really my husband more than myself). So we leave his cage door open pretty often, and usually he just stays in there and does his little Jasper things. Today however I noticed when I was doing some morning chores that he wasn't in his cage. I looked around the yard for him and I didn't see him so I went inside and got ready to go out to my studio and paint (it's a converted detached garage in the backyard). I go in to start working and look who showed up early for work!
Jasper gets a day job
I had left the studio door open and he had just flown on in there and was waiting for me. I keep the ducklings in there, so they can be in a climate-controlled area where there are no cats to harrass them. Here's Jasper watching over his new friends. (The baby duckling is being separated with the wire mesh while she learns to walk a little better so she doesn't get steamrolled by the other two)


And here's a picture of all three after the smallest one was a little better at walking, as you can see, they don't hold still very well.
Zooming ducklings!

10 comments:

Chiot's Run said...

How exciting! They're so cute. I'm hoping to get a few ducks next spring to have around the gardens to eat bugs and produce eggs.

Kory said...

The third hatched too, thats great. What are you feeding them, do they need a special diet when they're this young?

rachelbess said...

I'm feeding them chick feed (19% protein) with brewers yeast mixed in, which the ducks need for niacin. The ration I'm using is a little more than a cup of brewers yeast to 5 lbs of chick crumbles. I think I'm going to start supplementing that with chopped up lettuce or grass too. I'm so excited about them!

maventheavenger aka jamie said...

cute, cute, cute.
Is Jasper going to pose for you?

KrisMrsBBradley said...

Oh, they are all so cute!

AJK said...

Awwww, Big bwuther Jasper watchin da wittle duckies! awwww...(melting)

Theresa said...

They are very cute! When my ducks were just 2 days old they started eating ducky salad. I finely chopped tomatoes,fresh green beans, marigolds, sunflower petals,carrots,and zucchini.They loved it. You won't believe how fast they grow. Good Luck!

mollyrat said...

i'm going to the UK to visit 4 different wildlife hospitals/sanctuaries...it's like a rehab deal, where say a badger gets hit by a car or a cat attacks a hedgehog or an owl falls out of it's nest, they come into the hospital, where their patched up and looked after till their fit and ready to go back into the wild.
should be quite fun, crazy hours. never done anything like this before. maybe i'll do it for the rest of my life...who knows!
haha lovely that lions remind you of me. that's brilliant. i feel honored.

mollyrat said...
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