Make it a dozen … 13? … more?

Yesterday I announced the arrival of the new ducklings (pictures of the newly hatched are in the post below), saying that I thought Peeps, the mom, had managed to produce “about 10.” This was already quite a lot more ducks than I thought I had invited to this party.

But you know, it’s hard to count ducklings. They move around, they hide underneath mom, behind each other …

So what do you think? I count at least 13. Maybe 14. Ducklings, ducklings, and more ducklings. Oh my.

This one’s not worried …

The ducklings hatched on August 11. They made their first brief appearance outside of the nest yesterday, the 12th. The photo below shows them starting to explore the area around the nest. I brought them water in an old dog bowl, and the day-old duckies immediately jumped in. Even at that age, they know they were born to be tub toys.

That metal thing is part of an old antenna that came down during the big hurricane a few years back. I put it in there because I thought the Muscovies (which are perching ducks) might want to perch on it, but they never do.

As of today Peeps is taking them for long strolls around the duck enclosure, which is a big hoop house covered with chicken wire and shaded by an ancient grapevine. There are so many ducklings that it sometimes looks as though she’s being carried along on a yellow, fluffy wave.

I like that portrait of mom and (some of) the kids.

The photo above shows them visiting the area where the rest of the ducks get their food and water.

And here’s mom teaching them how to hunt for food. Unlike songbirds that are sheltered in the nest until they can fly, and fed by their parents throughout that time, ducklings feed themselves from day one.

The rest of the family is pretty bored with the whole thing. In the photo below, that’s the dad on the right. Hide, Peeps’s mother, is in front. She hatched four eggs only about a month ago, and those are her kids behind her. Yes, they do grow up fast.

The one on the left is Duck, Hide’s sister. She sat on six eggs for two months (they usually hatch after 35 days) but didn’t hatch one. (This may help to explain why I’m a little stunned by the size of Peeps’s brood.) When Hide hatched her four, Duck abandoned her unhatched eggs and started helping to take care of Hide's brood. Hey, it takes a flock.

Make room for ducklings

There she is, the proud mom. A bit too proud, perhaps, because this overachieving mother seems to have managed to hatch about 10 eggs. (The previous record, held by her mother, was four.) I don't know exactly how many Peeps has because she won't let me get close enough to find out. (The closeup photos below are courtesy of a Zoom lens!) But one thing's for sure -- it's a lot more ducklings than I was expecting.

I am not quite sure what I'm going to do with so many ducks, but if you're in the market for fertilizer, let me know -- I expect to have it in large quantities next spring.

Meanwhile, why worry about the price of duck food when you have tiny ducklings to enjoy?

Housing poultry

December 2007: The ducks wait for me to find them a place to spend the winter. In case you're wondering, bathtubs should be reserved for rubber duckies.

PEOPLE ARE INTERESTED IN BACKYARD POULTRY these days, so I thought I might say a few words on that subject. Most people choose chickens, which I've never had. I chose ducks because I had read that they are easier to care for than chickens are. This has certainly been true of my Muscovy ducks, who are almost in-duck-structible, as I like to say.

Whatever poultry you pick, be sure to have good housing for them. My one big mistake was that I got the ducks before I had made proper arrangements for living quarters. I did arrange a nice home for the younglings on a deck, but that worked well when they were youngly. Eventually they grew, learned how to fly (well, they don't fly well so it's more of an assisted hop), and escaped down to the pond. This was fine too for a while. The ducks had an idyllic summer living la vida duckie (though the pond's frogs may not have enjoyed it so much).

When the pond froze, however, we soon discovered--as countless farmers have learned before us--that keeping animals over winter is not just a pond full of duckies. My husband and I had to catch them. Which was, as they say, a laff riot. It is truly a shame that nobody was out there with a videocam.

Then, since we weren't willing to go the traditional route--kill them, cook them, eat them--we had to figure out a way to house them over the winter. They spent some time locked up in a bathroom while I rigged a winter shelter for them on a back porch. Then they spent the winter trying to get out of their too-small shelter, and often succeeding. More hilarity ensued.

I was lucky enough to have a large hoop-house, formerly used as a greenhouse but abandoned except for weeds and a big, overgrown grapevine. Last spring we covered the hoops with chicken wire, then dug a trench around the outside of the shelter and buried more chicken wire down to a depth of about a foot. This was to prevent predators from digging under the wall.

It is particularly important for your shelter to be sturdy enough to keep predators out, as just about everything loves poultry. This is as true in the city as anywhere else. One urban friend of mine lost most of her flock after a neighbor's dogs got loose. She had a well-made hen coop, which had kept raccoons out for years. But it wasn't strong enough to defeat marauding pet dogs.

Even with the precautions we had taken, we lost two ducks after predators (raccoons, most likely) managed to break the door to the duckhouse. After that we installed a much sturdier door, held in place by three bolts, and I started inspecting the shelter regularly for signs of attempted break-ins. Eventually I reinforced some of the chicken wire when I noticed that somebody had started chewing on it. Since then the ducks seem to be doing pretty well, and I'm planning to get more in the spring.

July, 2008: The Duckburg Biosphere Reserve (as we like to call it) is a much better home for ducks. The shelter in the middle of the photo is a kennel that used to belong to my late giant-breed dog Molly. The old grapevine provides shade in the summer. That metal thing to the left of the dog kennel is part of an old antenna. I thought the ducks might like to perch on it (Muscovies are perching ducks) but they don't use it. On the other hand, the grapevine is using it, which creates more shade. Not shown in the photo is a child's swimming pool, which is their pond. This year I'm planning to replace it with a similar-sized stock-watering tank, having discovered that I can buy such a thing at the local feed store.

As the hoop house is open to the elements, when winter arrived I took the old dog kennel you see in the photo above, and separated the two halves. Each half is now a low-ceilinged duck house big enough to hold several ducks. I used scraps of plywood, paneling, insulation, styrofoam, and old cardboard to insulate these shelters, and (weather permitting) try to keep the floor well covered with wood chips and hay. When temperatures are below freezing, I check the ducks 2-3 times a day depending on the weather, taking a bucket of warm water with me every time. I don't mind doing this, as I like the ducks and enjoy visiting them.

As you can see, keeping poultry can be a good deal of work. But if you are not trying to do it on the ultra-cheap, as I am, you could make it a lot easier by starting out with a well-designed, well-built shelter. Otherwise be prepared for a lot of comedy -- and occasional tragedy -- while you figure out an affordable way to shelter and protect your birds.

The Duck-Slug Principle

Above, Muscovy duck mom Hide with baby Peeps, photographed in their guaranteed-slug-free enclosure last summer.

"YOU DON'T HAVE an excess of slugs. You have a deficiency of ducks!" This is a paraphrase of a quote often ascribed to Bill Mollison, one of the founders of the Permaculture movement back in the 1970s. Permaculture is a way of designing property so that all the pieces (land, water, air, animals, plants, humans, and human constructions) work together to provide the basic necessities of life. One of the big attractions of Permaculture is that it uses natural means to do things that otherwise would have to be done through human labor.

For instance, rather than kill slugs ourselves, all we have to do is make sure we have enough ducks!

Permaculture is biased toward creating habitat for humans. Domesticated animals get more attention than wild animals do, and agricultural plants are favored over native species. Even so, a homestead designed along Permaculture design principles will make a lot more room for wildlife than a conventional property wood. Permaculture design ideas are compatible and can be very helpful in a "wild" approach to land management.

Take, for instance, control populations of pest insects. The slug/duck formula applies here too. By providing cover and food for the animals that eat these pests, I can control them without having to do much work myself.

One of the easiest ways to do that is to plant plants that attract these insects, which are usually referred to as beneficial to distinguish them from the pesty kind. Check this site for a list of plants that attract various types of beneficial insects.

For information on Permaculture, see the Wikipedia entry and the website of the Permaculture Institute.

Duck (Her name is "Duck")