Tiny Grass

For the last few days we’ve been feeling pretty lucky about getting one egg per day. Of course, we have 4 presumably female ducks. I’m still looking forward to the days ahead when I get 3 or 4 eggs per day. But at least this is a start. And yesterday I got my first really big one - the equivalent of an extra-large chicken egg. I’ve been really proud of the anonymous duck that made that egg for the last 24+ hours.

But up until now, I’ve only used the duck eggs to bake a cake. (The cake turned out just as expected, by the way. The same as when I used chicken eggs.) So this morning, Arp and I were excited to try frying up some duck eggs for breakfast to see what they taste like in their pure form. Read more »

Ever since the ducks turned 18 weeks old, I’ve been excitedly looking for eggs every darn day when I go out to let them out of their duck house in the morning. Each day was a disappointment. Finally, on the one day that I was busy making breakfast, Arp headed out to let the ducks out himself. When he came back in a few minutes later calling my name, I was shocked to see him standing outside with two beautiful eggs in his hand. Read more »

I had a lovely altercation with one of my neighbors yesterday that culminated in two non-veiled threats to my ducks’ lives. Lovely. Read more »

The ducks seem to be changing as they sexually mature, and it’s been interesting watching some new behaviors. It all started las week when Mr. Keating, one of our Khaki Campbells, came out of the duckhouse one morning and promptly lay flat on her stomach. I panicked, probably because I’m still scarred from the death of Megatooth. I yelled very loudly for Arp to come quick. He came running outside to see the still-on-the-ground Mr. Keating. But then Mulva starting doing some interesting things, including pecking and preening Mr. Keating in a somewhat aggressive manner. That’s when Arp and I looked at each other quizzically. When we looked back, Mr. Keating was up and about, perfectly fine.

Arp says, “Looks like Mr. Keating is Mulva’s bitch.” We both laughed.

Let me just note that I’m still under the impression that all my ducks are female.

So I suppose the options are:

• They are just working on a pecking order.
• They are discovering their true sexual selves, which are perhaps lesbian.
• Or…maybe I have a male duck.

Today I even witnessed Mulva mount Mr. Keating, which was quite fun to watch. Mr. Keating seems to enjoy it. But still, I think they are all girls.  No curly tail feathers have been sighted (a sure sign of maleness).  And they all seem to quack like true females (a real loud true “quack!”, not the darker sound that males supposedly make).  But still, I’m an amateur.  I won’t be sure that they are all truly female until I see 4 eggs some morning .

Speaking of quacking, we really no longer call Macaroni by her name.  Instead, we tend to call her, “that Macaroni” with a shake of our heads.  Naughty, naughty duck!  She quacks in a very obnoxious and loud way.  In fact, you can hear it from several streets away. Usually it’s because she sees someone walk by on the street and wants to be let out.  Or sometimes she sees a cat outside the pen and wants to scare it off.  Other times she quacks when she is annoyed with us for one reason or other.  Like when we herd her away from the poison ivy.  I think I can almost translate: “Why don’t you just leave me alone to do what I want, Mom?!”  Teenagers.

Going into this duck project, I really wasn’t sure what to expect behaviorally from the ducks once they were a part of our family. As I’ve mentioned before, the primary reason I’ve chosen to own ducks is for the eggs. But I’ve always hoped that the ducks would also be a pleasure to be around, sort of like a working pet. If they weren’t fun to be around, I think I would seriously have second thoughts about owning them. But I am happy to say that the whole family is more than satisfied with their behavior, or pet potential.

The ducks are now 10 weeks old. In my estimation, they genuinely enjoy spending time with us. We let them out of their pen area to freely graze in the yard whenever my husband or I are going to be outside for any length of time. That usually means twice a day, since it is now warm weather. In the mornings, when I’m outside playing with the kids, the ducks are usually outside with us for two or three hours at a time. What most surprises me is that they usually choose to stick right around us all when we are sitting around under the trees or at the picnic table. They could easily make the choice to go in back of the house to graze, which would be out of my sight, but they don’t usually do that. I usually find that they stick around within 15 feet of people. Now, some have suggested that ducks are really only motivated to stay near humans for the food. In our case, I don’t think that is true. Since the grazing all over the yard is so good here, I never give them treats anymore. I only feed them in the morning and night from a pet bowl in their pen, so I don’t think they are constantly looking for food from me.

Another interesting thing that they do is peck at me. Or, as the photo above illustrates, they peck at the laundry when I am folding it. They might be looking for food in that case. Although it’s pretty strange since they will peck around in the folds of laundry for a good 15 minutes if I let them and find no food. They also really love to peck at my Crocs (while they are on my feet of course). But when I’ve done a load of light-colored laundry, I have to scare them off or they will leave mud marks on the clothes.

Before owning ducks, I was kind of worried about how the ducks would tolerate kids. Some of the descriptions that I read of khaki campbells said that they are energetic and high strung compared to other breeds. I have also read warnings that you should always stay calm and walk slowly around ducks. So I was a little worried how the ducks would fare around a toddler and 4 year-old. Again, I’m happy to say that it has worked out fine. I kept the kids relatively calm during the first week we had the ducks freely grazing in the yard. But after that, I’ve pretty much let the kids act like normal and the ducks have been fine. In fact, they don’t show the slightest amount of stress even when I get a bunch of kids in the yard yelling and screaming. Sometimes they stop grazing and look up, but otherwise take no notice. Actually, sometimes when M breaks into a sprint across the yard, the ducks do sometimes take notice and run after M, squawking a bit and acting generally funny, but it’s not something that seems to be unhappy for them. They seem to like it!

Another thing I have learned is that it is easy to herd ducks. I was nervous about herding them the first few times. I had a distinct fear that they would just run in all directions and never come back to me. But it turns out that herding ducks is easy. The key is not walking too fast (or too slow) behind them, and not letting them get separated. As long as you follow behind them at the right rate and watch them carefully for any inappropriate breakaways, you can pretty much make them go anywhere. Getting them to go to the right place is actually kind of satisfying, like playing a real-life video game.

Oh - I’ve decided that my runner ducks don’t much look like runner ducks (see picture below).  Kind of disappointing, but I still think they are beautiful.   The hatchery must have let their ducks diverge significantly from the ideal.  It’s true that I didn’t pay for show-quality birds, but I still expected them to look a little more like a runner than they are currently looking.  Oh well.