I told my uncle I would bring him some ducklings this week but now I am dragging my feet. It is so hard to give them away. But if you could see me at feeding time you would understand. When I go out I am greeted by a mob of honking ducks and ducklings.

June 5 1998 ~~~~~ Well it is the end of the week and I promised to take my Uncle some baby ducks after five o'clock one day this week, so I guess today is the day. I have decided to only take two, for now. That way if he gets two of the same sex, I can take him the opposite sex next time. (And I get to keep the others a little longer.) The duckings are out eating the buds from the low hanging branches of the popcorn tree as I write this. Yesterday, I placed a marjoram (herb) in the spot that I wanted to plant it and got distracted. This morning when I went back to plant it, all I had was a half a pot of dirt.Oh well!
It appears that the three yellow and silver ducklings will not have a crest but all five of the solid yellow ducklings will have some type of crest, even if it is only a lop-sided feather sticking off the side of their head. My former best friend, told me this week, she thought ducks with feathers sticking off their heads were ugly. Well she will have to learn, you just don't talk about peoples babies!:)

June 5......continued

Well, I am overcome with guilt. A really good therapist could have a field day with me. We caught the first duckling and put it in a bird cage. Gabby went berserk. She tried to run both of us off, she tried to get the baby from the cage, she tried to get the baby to follow her in the pen. She just kept running around the cage in circles and honking loudly. I was seriouly considering giving her the baby back.
But then we got the second one. She was furious. And I might add the baby ducks were pretty upset also. So off we went with our cargo....two silver and yellow ducklings and a ton of guilt, to Uncle Levi's and Aunt Mary's. They were happy to get the babies. I put them in their new pen. And it is a very nice pen made from stainless steel wire. We are going back Sunday to relocate them to their own private fenced in yard with a top and fresh water continuouly dripped in. He will tell me their names then.

June 7 1998 ~~~~~~ Well I am happy to say Gabby does not seem to be holding a grudge against me, I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I am the one who lets her out in the morning and I am the one who hands out the food. We went to Uncle Levi's and Aunt Mary's as planned, where I did not fare as well. Their ducks, named Jean and John, (hmmmm..has a familar ring to it) wouldn't give me the time of day. Even tho' I was letting it be known that I had brought there favorite treat, "Puppy Food".When I last saw them they were following the mallards, roosters and hens and chicks.

June 9 1998~The babies were about 2 and 1/2 weeks old when this picture was taken.
They are following Gabby through the tarragon.(Herb) This was before we found a new home for two of the gray and yellow ones. Can you spot Don King? He is the second duckling behind Gabby. The last duckling, the one with the black bands on his legs is one(of the two) that we gave to my aunt and uncle.

June 14 1998~ Gabby's gang is thriving, Gabby and the six remaining babies are a handful. The ducklings are getting their pin feathers. One baby, the largest looks like he may not have a crest after all and he may be all white. The one remaining duck that was gray and yellow is a darker gray with a chocolate brown on his chest. The other four, Don "King", Minnie "Pearl", Yankee "Doodle" and "Tonto" have crest and Gabbys coloring. They will be white with a fawn colored chest, with little patches of fawn on them. Gabby used to lead them around and now she trys to keep up with them. Gabby does not like the cat and kittens and is constantly trying to run them off. I am going to name the duckling that is all white, Little Hannah, in memory of my favorite duck, Hannah, the male pekin that I lost almost two years ago. He was a sweetie who would check my pockets for treats. I adored that duck, and still can't believe how much a grown woman could love and miss a duck. And last but not least the duck with the chocolate colored chest is named "Moose". Ta Da ! They all have names now.

June 17 1998 ~~~ The "gang" has made it to 5 weeks now and have been growing faster than the feed budget. When I look out my kitchen window and see them down by the pond, it takes a few seconds to figure out which one is Gabby. So they are going to be full size, soon. I am listening to try and figure out the sex. But it is still too early, I think. It is difficult to sex ducklings. However as they get older, you can tell by the sounds they make. The female has a very loud quack. The male has a much softer quack, almost like a loud whisper. I think maybe the females are louder, so they can warn the young of dangers. I know it has been effective at this place. My female pekin will come to my bedroom window and honk loud enough to get me out of the bed at 2:00 a.m. to come to her assistance. But that is another story. Back to sexing ducklings. As they get older the male (drake) gets a couple of curly feathers on his tail, known as the drake feathers. And that is the best way I know of to sex ducks. That also helps explain why my first pair of ducks where Hannah (drake) and Edsel (hen) but I felt like their names suited there personalities.

June 23 1998 ~~~ The six babies and Gabby are doing great. They had been sleeping in their pen every night. But the past couple of nights they have been sleeping close to the back door with the other ducks. So they spend most of the day down at the edge of the pond under the oak tree. And at night they all come up and sleep close to the back door. So we don't have to lock them up anymore. We had relatives come to visit today from out of state. The first thing they asked was where is "Don King"? Don has earned a reputation for having a crest that is "to die for" if you are a duck, and adorable to the rest of us. I had planned to have more pictures but I had to send my camera back to the factory. But I will get pictures as soon as I can.

July 15 1998 ~~~We finally had a couple of days where it didn't get up to 95 degrees this week and I was able to sit under the oak tree and watch the babies play in the pond. They were "dabbling" and "tipping". Dabbling is what they do when they stick their beaks in the mud and search for goodies. Tipping is more fun to watch and doesn't leave little mud holes all over the place. Tipping is when they tip over, with their heads under water fishing for good vegetation. When they tip you just see half of there bodies above the water. Not the half we are familar with when we see ducks on a pond. You see their tails and usually their feet are paddling like crazy for them to maintain this position. Like other pets, they are each developing their own "personalities". A strange word to describe their behavoir, don't you think? So I am going to start to tell a little about each duck.(one at time) with each new entry. So today I thought I would tell how we acquired Gabby or how she aquired us. Earlier this year I just had the two pekins. Edsel and her friend Louie. Edsel was the only hen (female) so I decided we need to get a couple of "girls". I tried to find Pekins but was having no luck. So I went to the flea market and bought a pair of the only females they had. They are smaller than pekins, all I was told was that they were crested ducks. Then I got to thinking what if something happened to one? So we went back right away and got a third duck, so if something did happen we would still have a pair. We paid five dollars for each duck. When we got home they all hid in the bushes, on the other side of the pond. So, we were thinking we might be out fifteen dollars, because for all we knew they could be trying to hitch a ride back to the flea market. But they started coming out one by one. We would count them and report to each other, I saw five dollars on the pond today, or when saw two we would say I saw ten dollars on the pond today, and finally all three came out at the same time, my husband said I saw fifteen dollars on the pond today. We bought them on Saturday and on Tuesday when my husband came home from work I said, " you are not going to believe this, I saw twenty dollars on the pond today".
( We did not spend 20 dollars ) And that is how we acquired Gabby. We have no idea where she came from, She looked just like one we had bought except she doesn't have a crest. I wanted to name the four "girls" the names from "Little Women". That is what I did, we had Jo, Amy, and Beth. But I was having trouble remembering the name of the fourth girl in the story, meanwhile Gabby was constantly honking and so she became, Gabby, even though I did finally remember the fourth name.
I will let you come up with it on you own. :)
(sadly and ironically) Beth was attacted by a rather large turtle a few weeks later and died shortly after.

July 17 1998 ~~~Last night I went out to check on my ducks at about nine o'clock. They were all close to the house (in the flowers) bedding down for the night. Then something caught my eye. I have one of those half barrels that you can plant flowers in, and I saw something in the barrel, It turned out to be one of the babies. I think it was Tonto but since it was dark I can't be sure. I guess she likes sleeping at a higher altitude. It was so cute!

Lil'Hannah It's a Boy !The evidence is in on Hannah. He has the quiet quack, and one of his tail feathers is starting to curl slightly.(The Drake Feather) I think I might be the only person to ever have two boy ducks named Hannah. Hannah is the only one that looks like a pekin. I thought at first he would be smaller than a pekin, but he is almost the same size as Louie already. Hannah is always the last to leave at feeding time, so at this rate I think he may end up being larger than Louie. Pekins are too heavy to fly but he flaps his wings and runs down to the pond to catch up with the others after meal time.

July 30 1998 ~~~ I have been reluctant to add my latest entry, it is more sad news. Everything was going so well, we had settled into a routine and I thought Slowpoke and I could finally go away for a long week-end. We love to go to the beach, and we hadn't been since the ducklings came along. So I planned everything and I had "duck sitters" come in for a few hours everyday.
( I even included internet access to insure the "sitters" would be around for a few hours each day) But when we arrived home Monday afternoon we discovered "Minnie Pearl" was missing. We looked for her for hours but we were never able to find her. So I really don't have any idea what happened to "Pearl". We will miss her, she was a beautiful duck. She was the smallest, and had the prettiest coloring of all the ducklings.

August 12 1998 ~~~It is early and I have been out to feed the ducks. I was surprised to find no one hungry this morning. That is a extremely rare, so I called Edsel my 4 year old, knowing that Edsel would come to eat. But I didn't see her at first and when I did find her she was eating from the tin I had unintentionaly left out last night. So all my ducks were treated to an all night buffet last night. I know they enjoyed that.
There still has been no information on what happened to Minnie. My hunch is that it was something or someone on the pond.(When they are attacked on land there is usually a lot of feathers left in one small area.) The reason I added people to the list is because when I first got home from the beach everytime a small jon boat was on the pond the ducks would get nervous and get in their pen. Earlier this year we had some young boys steal our jon boat. We were able to locate it about a week later. But I am just guessing I will really don't know what happened.

October 1 1998 ~~~ I am back finally after a brief illness that resulted in surgery.
But I am on the road to recovery. The babies are no longer babies. They are mature ducks now. I now know the sex of all the babies, I guess I will always call them the babies. I have one girl and four males and they are all bigger than their Mom, Gabby. They are always fighting with each other and the other ducks. So there is never a dull moment. We have a new duck bath tub which they like to fight over. It is a black tub that is supposed to be used for mixing cement. It will hold up to three at one time but they all prefer to have the tub to themselves. That is not the only thing they fight over the boys chase the girls, which causes fights. Also they are trying to establish a pecking order,(who gets to be the boss)a position once held by Louie. Then Hans seem to be the dominant male but now I don't know who is the dominate duck. However, Edsel, the oldest female still holds the self proclaimed title of the Queen of ducks.

October 25 1998 ~~~ Well it's time for an update. My ducks have divided themselves into two groups, the "old ducks" and the "new ducks" with six in each group. The "new" ducks are Gabby, Moose, Tonto, Don King, Doodle and Hannah. The old ducks are Edsel, Louie, Jo, Amy, Hans and Paddy. They fight all the time :( Gabbys gang has started to go out on the pond a good deal of the time, which has helped to cut down on the fighting. There is certainly never a dull moment in our backyard.

Tonto It's a Boy !Tonto is a large white duck with a brown chest. His crest consist mainly of one slightly angled feather. He is a beautiful duck ! Tonto is usually the leader of the pack. And starts alot of the mischief.

November 24 1998 ~~~ Gabby's Gang continues to cause trouble. They are forcing the "old" ducks to leave my yard. They all show up for 3 square meals a day, however. The yard is fenced on three sides but there is no fence down by the pond. So the old ducks go around the fence and go to the edge of my neighbors yard. The biggest trouble makers have learned their names and seem to understand when I call them by name and tell them to get back in their own group. Who are the biggest trouble makers? Tonto, Hannah and Louie.

Febuary 6 1999 ~~~Hello again, I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday season. We are still having group wars here. There are now three groups, the five male ducks from the other side of the pond come over and add to my problems. We refer to them as the "Bad Boys". I guess every neighborhood has it's bullies. My old ducks do not stay in my yard at all any more. That makes me sad. But they still come home to eat two or three times a day. Edsel was injured, just before the new year and on New Years Day it didn't look good for her, but she made it, and is able to walk again with a bad limp. And she is the one that is harrassed the most by the other ducks. The "new" ducks have gained control of the back yard. And Hannah the one named after my "sweet" male duck Hannah is so bad that he gets booted from his own group from time to time.

Moose It's a Girl !

Moose is " our little girl". She has, without a doubt, the sweetest disposition of the group. She has NEVER caused any trouble at all. Moose is a terrific pet. She often stays off to herself, She has more of the darker colors that the others. She is smaller than the boys, but bigger than Gabby. She comes to the back door for food frequently. She shares an unusual habit with Gabby. After eating, The two females, Moose and Gabby, go to a place out back when we dumped the ashes from our grill last fall and they eat some ashes. And then they often come back to the back door to eat again, and then go back to the ash pile and eat more ashes. They are the only two to do this, and they do it after every meal.

If you must leave here are some places you can go from here.

Gabbys' Nest

The Bird Room

Crooked Tree Station

The Poultry Connection