Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Little Quackers

Our daughter snapped a couple of good pictures of the recent hatch of ducklings.


Here it looks as though the family just came out of the pond.  Mama Duck is preening herself . . .


. . . and the ducklings are settling down on a patch of warm soil in the sunlight for a rest period.

Whenever possible, having animals (fur or fowl) raise their young in the natural way is a joy to see.

13 comments:

MrsDuncanMahogany said...

I would love to have some sort of fowl to raise but I think with all the fox, coyotes and whatever else is lurking in our forests me thinks I will pass for now. At least until I am home full time. This morning the pungent smell of skunk was in the air and our dogs smelled it too!

wisps of words said...

These photos are precious.

Your daughter is a good photographer.

The 'brown' type goes so well, with the topic.

Your Header set-up is so pretty.

Your whole ding-dang blog look, is cool!!!!!!!

:-)))

Mama Pea said...

MrsDM - We couldn't let our poultry "run free" either because of those same predators you speak of. The poultry pasture and pond are within electric fencing. Should a critter get through the fencing, the chickens would scatter and fly up into the trees and the ducks and geese can swim out into the center of the pond. Unfortunately, none of them have protection from hawks above and we have lost chickens and ducklings that way.

Oh, skunks! We haven't had to deal with one of those stinkers for several years. Which is just FINE with us. Sorry you've had to!

Mama Pea said...

words of wisps - Well, THANK YOU, ma'am!! :o]

Susan said...

I just love ducklings. They are the cutest things. And I love your new header photograph - beautiful! I see Chicken Mama's creative hand there...

Athanasia said...

Ach, the ducklings are so cute. We have lots of families on our pond now.

Were you affected by all that rain a few days ago in NW Wisconsin? I know they said some of the areas were along the MN-WI border. That was still about 200 miles away from us. We did get 6 inches. That was way plenty.

Pioneer Woman at Heart said...

Cute! Great pics too.

Mama Pea said...

Susan - I think ducklings are the cutest of all the fowl varieties! Thanks for noticing my new blog header photo. My photo, daughter's magic fingers in working it up for the header!

Athanasia - You got 6" of rain?! Hope it didn't do too much damage. That's a lot! No we are far north of where the big rains hit. They had bridges and roads wash out about 120 miles south of us, but no problems here. Thanks for asking.

Kristina - Yes, she got much closer to them than I managed. They're growing SO fast!

coffeeontheporchwithme said...

I just want to hold them!! -Jenn

Rain said...

They are adorable!!! I definitely want a flock, but I think just as pets and for eggs :) Great shots by Chicken Mama! :)

Mama Pea said...

Rain - We've found the ducks to be quite personable (if a duck can be personable!) so I know you'd love them as pets and for the eggs which are wonderful for baking as I'm sure you know. The other thing we've found is that we're not crazy about duck as a meat! So I don't think we'll ever be raising a bunch for that purpose. The only reason we let this mama duck hatch out this one batch this year was because she really wanted to go broody and we didn't want to discourage her from that. Next spring, we'll probably just put chicken eggs under her since we don't currently have a hen that seems to want to set and we need new chickens every other year.

Our daughter is a very good photographer . . . and she doesn't even have a "good" camera!

Rosalea said...

Happy Summer Solstice to the 'Peas'!I just searched your blog for how you hill your spuds. My 'go to' for garden advice! We are settled in our new home and I have a potato patch!! Yeah! It took a lot of work, as there were no gardens here. There are now! Us old 'geezers' are slimmer and trimmer, and totally enjoying our new life so close to Mother Nature. It was a huge life change, but so very much worth it!!

wisps of words said...

June 21, 2018

Happy Midsummer’s Eve...!!!