We have acquired DUCKS!

[luzula]

Here they are in their enclosure (which is hopefully fox-proof), near their little house which they don't seem very interested in. They are keeping their distance. They do not trust us. This is understandable given that we bundled them squawking into cardboard boxes and abducted them from their previous home. However, they seem to be reasonably happy with their enclosure. They are runner ducks, which move quite fast and upright, but do not fly, and look kind of like deformed mallards.

They do seem to accept the house as a place for laying eggs in! We found these two in the morning. According to the previous owners the females (of which we have two) lay an egg a day. \o/ We scrambled the eggs and had them with lunch. They are bigger than hen eggs and were delicious. I am however a little worried about how we will know how much to feed them--it must be an effort for them to lay that much!

I have the impression that they think their enclosure is fine, but they love the big enclosure with the vegetable beds, where we herded them this morning! The previous owners said they were great slug eaters, which is good, because Sweden has an invasive slug problem (the slugs want to eat the vegetables you grow). A few days before the ducks came, housemate went out with a scissors in the morning and cut 450 slugs. /o\ /o\ Hopefully the ducks will help with this.

The ducks are just instant joy! You look at them and go "awwww, how are they so cute and ridiculous?" and "yay, eating slugs now!". Soon: DUCKLINGS. A friend of ours is incubating some eggs for us so we can eventually have more ducks!

Comments

[sanguinity]

We had male geese, and there was no lack of mating behavior. But yes, we did wonder if there wasn't successful fertilization happening.

We did not have abundant grass! Our geese got to wander around and forage (slugs and bugs and weeds -- and the first year, favored landscaping), were turned loose in the garden enclosure every fall, and were also fed supplementary cracked corn.

I cannot speak to the comparative Drama of geese and ducks, never having had ducks. But I can testify that the geese used to menace my brother and I, and there were entire summers that we never left the house without a whiffle bat to defend ourselves. They were damn good watchgeese, though: nothing came onto our property without them raising holy hell about it.

[luzula]

Ha ha, that definitely sounds like more Drama than ducks! So far our ducks are simple souls and seem to be low-maintenance, aside from occasionally going places we do not want them to go. It's easy to make them happy, or so it seems!