The ducklings are too cool for us, so they've made a group decision to move out!

Ducklings aren't small for very long.
Their first day with us they were tiny, curious, fluffy
bouncing around in the box they arrived in.
This was only about 5 weeks ago!

Before long they were racing around as fast as their little legs could carry them, we set up an outdoor run so they could spend their days outdoors. They loved swimming and destroying grass. Finding worms, peeping, eating, pooping, eating poop.

They weren't so fond of the part where we bundled them into a box every morning to ship them out, and back into the box in the evening to come back indoors

But they did love their indoor box. After work I would get home, clean out the wet dirty wood shavings, clean poop off the warmer (we had it turned off after about 2 weeks, but left it in as they loved climbing on it), get them fresh mint to nibble and a fresh dirt wad to destroy

 

 

They dabbled, peeped, spyed on us throuh their windows and climbed all over their cardboard box jungle gym

 

 

 

Even when they were so big they pushed each other off to get on top.

Towards the end of October they were starting to get a bit big for their indoor brooder box. Poop from that many big ducks naturally starts to make a now quite dusty room also a bit stinky.

All the kids had most of their juvenille feathers, their flight feathers well on the way. One of the gang let us know she was a girl by quacking loudly amongst all the baby duck noise from the others. They all let us know they didn't appreciate being picked up to go into their transport box by runing and hiding then scratching as much hand skin as they could when you could finally get hold of them.

 

  

 

The nights were warm enough, and they had a shelter to sleep under
it was time to let the ducks sleep outside
They pressed against the fence peeping and beeping! we want to go inside! On their second night they escaped. We went to open the coop door to let the big kids out in the morning and there they were! helping themselves to the big ducks' ponds...
Stevie, Bonnie and Whitney weren't just unimpressed. They were terrified! we aren't sure whether the ducklings just wanted to hang out with the big kids, or wanted what they saw them using, but the buffs ran and kept out of their way.

 

 

That night they cried to be let back into the house, we herded them back to their run, it wouldn't be long now and we would remove their fence for good. For the rest of the week they Stayed in their run, I would come home from work, clean their water and refill their food. Yesterday afternoon we let them out for a wander
They promptly sampled every water bowl, dug in the bushes and dove for the big ducks' ponds.

 

Sunny and Lacey sampled their food while the others stayed out of their way.

 

 

We left for the supermarket and came back after the sun had gone down

 

Our lot were in their coop, settling for bed.

The wild ducks were nowhere to be seen (or heard)

A wild duck hen yelled loudly from the bottom paddock

 

We thought maybe they'd be back this morning for breakfast, but there was still no sign of them. So I took my coffee and walked down the driveway towards the flooded bottom paddock. It's a popular hangout spot for the local mallards and there are many families down there... including 9 new juvenile ducks.
So the dorks have moved on, but it's a good thing. We never expected them to stay, and now they can learn how to do wild duck things like forage and fly from other wild ducks

Good luck peepers!