Quack Quack -- Now we have ducks.

My daughter got her first rabbit the other day.  She plans on raising rabbits to sell for pets.  So my son decided that he'd like to raise ducks and sell duck eggs.  He got some books from the library and determined that he wanted Khaki Campbells.  They're a good layer.  So we split an order of ducklings with a neighbor.  They were hatched on July 1 and arrived in the mail on July 3.

Supposedly we got 3 females.  I'm not sure how they know when they're that little.

She won't be that little for long.  In three weeks they'll be in the yard.

They love, love, love the water.

Enough splashing, time for some rest.

I've always heard that ducks are messy.  I now know just how true that is.  They spend a lot of time in the water.  That gets the pine shavings soaked.  The water itself gets full of food and shavings and needs to be changed frequently.  My son has been pretty good about that.  He was playing at a friends house.  He came home to checked on the ducks and change their water and then went back to his friend's.  So already he appears to be learning some responsibility. 

I don't know why, but the ducks have attracted a lot of flies.  They're hovering around the cage and the food.  We didn't have that problem with 20 chicks in the garage so I don't know why 3 ducklings would attract them. 

They're eating plain old non-medicated chick feed.  I put a heat lamp in there with a 60w bulb, but I don't think it's really necessary.