What the DUCK?
We started our duck adventure just before this past Easter. For the last two years Easter has included the excitement of baby chicks at our house; this year we diversified our flock with a trio of ducks. We picked three that we thought were cute. They quickly won our hearts. Duck eggs are actually a baker’s choice egg. We are excited to try them. We enjoy their sweet disposition. They are quite entertaining with their love of water.
They are messy and they do poop a lot but as with all our animals they provide awesome opportunities for chores and for us to slow down. The ducks just make us laugh watching them waddle along happy as can be.
These sweet ducks also unfortunately taught us the hard lesson of loss. They were about two months old and we had moved them outside to - a dog converted to duck house - next to the chicken coop. They were doing great loving being outside.
They loved splashing in tubs of water and all was going swimmingly until one night a predator got into the duck house. Devastating.
We were so sad to lose our happy ducks. I was filled with remorse for not better securing the duck house. I didn’t want loss and sadness to be the end of our duck story. Luckily Merton Feed had some Mallard ducklings. We learned that we could care for the Mallard ducklings all summer then in the fall they may fly south and they may come back. I liked that idea as I had not yet figured out how to provide the ducks water all winter. We happened to have a broody (wants to be a mama) hen so instead of bringing the baby ducks inside our house where they really make a mess and get stinky quick we put the ducks under our hen.
Our mama hen instantly became a very proud mama.
Since it made her so happy we decided to add a couple Magpie ducks and a couple Silkie chickens to her family. And then on Father’s Day Austin rescued a duck from under a pier tangled in fishing wire with no family in sight. They became quite an eclectic group that our mama hen was so very protective of.
They grew up together this summer. I worry a bit that the ducks being raised by a mama hen maybe a bit confused. Will they still fly south in the fall? When the ducks jump in the water so happy I swear our mama hen looks at them with an expression of a mom of a two year old, “what in the world are you doing?” The Silky chicks certainly seem to better understand her sweet call for food or time for bed. Regardless of species they are growing up together and our mother hen loves them all.
Austin and his buddy Grayson built the ducks a pond so now we have a water solution. The ducks were a bit skeptical at first of the pond.
Now the ducks love the pond but we have a bit of a dirty water problem; even with our filter set up it gets dirty quick.
We will need to keep working on our water solutions for the ducks, the only thing we know for sure is that animals teach us so much. Our ducks have taught us:
You certainly don’t have to look alike to be friends.
Waddle happy, be happy.
Jump in the water, water is healing.
Better to know love and lose than not.
The more we appreciate our animals and love them the more we learn. This school year may we all learn a lesson from our ducks and our mama hen. May we embrace each other with kindness and compassion.
So what the duck, that’s what! Thank you ducks, so happy to have added you to our family. I can’t imagine life now with out ducks.
