In addition to building the house, we took on 13 ducklings, which arrived June 4th.
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| 13 Ducklings, June 5 |
They grew, and grew, and at 12 weeks, they really filled the pool!
A few days ago we finally found time to “reduce the flock”. We sold two of the females, and butchered three drakes and two of the remaining females. As planned, we had six remaining ducks; presumably one drake and five hens, all the Golden Cascades.
The only problem was this little stinker. “She” turned out to be a “he”. This one looks pretty much like the other hens, and with 13 ducks, I hadn’t noticed that he talks like a drake. Just after the butchering was over, Tim noticed that this duck was making the drake sound, and sure enough, he also has the drake curly tail.
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| Golden Cascade Drake |
He doesn’t have the white ring around his neck as the other drakes, nor the yellow bill. In fact, this bill is quite blueish-grey. All along I’ve just thought this was one of the hens. I had wanted to keep 5 hens for laying, but it’s not a real big deal that there are only 4 now. There will be plenty of eggs for Tim and me. We’ll have to figure out what to do with this extra drake, but we’ll figure it out.
For now, it’s awfully nice to have a mere six, calmer ducks. There’s less competition for food, they all happily float in the pool a great deal of the time, and it’s nice putting out half as much food for them. I don’t have to clean the water bowl or pool as often, either. Ahhhhh.