I had to reconfigure the carboard surrounding the ducks' crate this evening when I found one of them running around the bedroom. I'll be damned if I know how they're squeezing through those narrow openings, but at the rate they grow they should be too big to do it by this weekend ... I hope.
We have a runt again this year; a little brown duck I named Hershey. I always seem to have a soft spot for the underduck. Yesterday it was just a little bit smaller than the rest of them, but they grew and Hershey didn't, so today it's about half the size of the others. This puts it in the position of getting run over a lot when they're all scampering around, but it's eating and drinking and piling up with the rest of them to sleep, so hopefully it'll fluff up by tomorrow. I'm hoping it was just a late hatcher that got tossed in with some day-olds and will catch up to them soon.
The turkeys are pretty adorable. I read that overcrowding stresses them, and since I moved them to their own apartment away from the thundering horde of ducklings they've calmed down considerably, stopped pecking and become quite likeable. They're much cleaner and tidier tenants than the ducklings. They don't play in their water, they don't poop nearly as much and they're sort of dainty looking when they strut around on their long legs. Tonight they were fussing a lot, so I got them out and held them for awhile and they both fell asleep. So, we've learned that turkey poults and ducklings don't make good roommates.
Segregation is alive and well in Nowhere, IL.
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2 comments:
The "underduck" he he he....
I like that. I too have a different duck -- I think it is special needs, it runs odd, and may have either some vision or brain deficit that confuses it. She tends to stay separate from the others. BUT.... once on the water, this underduck is the leader, the bravest and the one who the others return to at a sign of trouble. The other ducks will follow this one. Go figure.
Fritz
SmallFarmLife.com
Hi, Fritz! Nice to see you!
Our Cayugas were never the brightest of our ducks, so I sort of laugh at the idea of four of them looking for one of them to be the leader. They're excellent little egg layers, though! One of ours almost always layed double yolkers!
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