Last weekend we had our friends, the Adams' come for a visit all the way from Ohio. Mike, Beth, Lexi, Ella, and Linc made the weekend extra fun and special. Our parents were also able to come out and spend the day. It was grand. I have to say how impressed I was with the Adams children- such well behaved children are a delight! They were polite, helpful and so good around all the different animals. They listened patiently and politely while I took the whole family on a tour around the farm. They thanked me for the pool toys I got for them without a parent reminding them! I look forward to them all coming back for another visit as soon as they are able.
One of the funny stories to come out of that weekend is as we adults were sitting on the pool deck and the children were playing in the pool, Beth and I were talking about the ducks. Their pool is not far from where we were sitting and they were doing their ducky thing around it. I was telling Beth that we had hoped we got a pair of ducks but it seems that we ended up with two girls, which was fine with me since I loved them no matter what. She asked how could I tell, since the Swedish Blues are not sex-linked; meaning the drakes and ducks have the same coloring. I told her about the drake feather, which is a small feather on the tail of a drake that curls up back towards the head. I pointed out that both my ducks had straight feathers on their tails.
Fast forward to that evening- everyone had gone home (Mike and Beth and the children stayed over at my parent's house for the night) and I'm going around cleaning up and doing my evening chores. I see the ducks and watch them for a bit until I realize.... one of them has a drake feather! It was almost as if he heard me talking to Beth and said, "HEY! I'm not a girl! Check this out!" and promptly started puberty.
They are getting close to the time when the duck will lay her first eggs. Within the next month. So I've put dummy eggs in their nest box and started offering a bit of oyster shells along with adding a bit of layer pellets to their feed. not too much at first. Mike and Beth are the ones who clued me in to the dummy eggs. They said that if I want to encourage the chickens to lay in the nest boxes I made for them, I should either put real eggs or dummy eggs in them. Ducks are the same! I got a few wooden eggs and placed them there while the ducks were in the yard. I didn't want them to see me and become suspicious.
I cannot decide weather or not I will let them have a brood of chicks or collect the eggs are they are laid. A bunch of baby chicks running around would be wonderful, but I'm not sure if we're ready for all that.
Also, the ducks need new names. I have decided that the drake should be named Peter. He just... looks like he should be called that. The duck... I'm still thinking about it.
Here are a few photos of the Adams' visit:
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