This morning Susie Farmerette (NOT) hit on the bright idea of shutting the hens out of the hen yard for the day, thereby turning it into a duck yard.
Duckling with mama
Three hours later I returned, point-and-shoot in my hip pocket. Eureka! Mama and baby ducky had emerged from their cave.
Finally I could remove the pet carrier (which mama has barely left for about a month), dump it, rinse it, and bed it down with fresh straw. Four pairs of beady hen eyes watched every step of the process. I think mama duck likes having the hens on the other side of the chickenwire.
Little ducky is actually eating the growth mash I bought at SBS the other day. It seems to like having the hens at a safe distance. (I don’t know nuthin’ about sexing ducklings, so “it” is the best I can do. Don’t want to be promoting gender confusion in little ducky.) Papa duck is keeping an eye out.
So is T-Beau the goldendoodle. He’s riveted by Ducky TV. (Little ducky is small yellow fluffball directly in front of mama.)
T-Beau watches Ducky TV
From the Seasonally Occupied Territories . . . 
Best one yet, I think, Susanna … must be birth proximity to Boston Common and Make Way for… that makes me continue to think that ducks are cute. Sometimes when it’s a bad storm or something else astrological happens that I’m unaware of, the ducks from the lake at the end of the street waddle all the way up to my yard, and I’m immediately galvanized to go out and get corn and other tasty treats for them. Always in couples, I note. The various cats I’ve had are at once transfixed and terrified. They generally stay inside and make overly loud, antagonistic noises which are immediately suppressed should the door be opened to them; cats are big fakers.
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T-beau knows a good show when he sees it. The first few nights after we got our then-4-month-old African Grey parrot (now ten years old), our puppy got no sleep due to spending those nights with her head up under the cage cover, watching the bird.
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Wonderful! You’re the godmother I think, which means you are responsible for religious instruction among other things.
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Make way for pagan feminist ducklings . . . š
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Well done! Baby ducky looks fabulous! They’re muscovy ducks, and it will be impossible to tell what gender the baby is until s/he is much bigger. About the only way to tell with muscovies is by size (boys are way way bigger and get a lot more red on their faces) and behavior (who’s on top).
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Mama is doing a good job protecting baby. She pecked at me (not hard) when I tried to pour a little growth mash into the dish that she was standing on at the time. Baby was eating around her feet.
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