We bought 23 baby Mallard ducks a couple of months ago from the Grange -- they were only a few weeks old when we got them. We kept them in the barn in a cage for a few weeks, but they smelled so bad when confined that it made our eyes water when we went in the barn, so we put them outside in a horse trailer with a heat lamp suspended in it for a week or two. Then that also began to reek to high heaven and we realized we were ready for them to go to the pond, whether they were ready or not.
We built a duckhouse near the pond for our baby Mallards and put the heat lamp in it, and let them loose. That was a couple of weeks ago. The first night we had a major blow here - we had to right the duck house after it was blown over. It is quite heavy, being made out of plywood, so we didn't think much could happen to it and were surprised when it happened again the next day.
The ducks quickly abandoned the duckhouse for the open pond and its banks, and with all the rain we have had, the duckhouse is now half-immersed by the rising pond.
The ducks swim and dive around it happily, although now only 19 of them remain - whether it was due to predators or accidents we don't know.
We had a great Thanksgiving (the US holiday) here, but it wreaked havoc with my work schedule and now I'm way "behinder" than I was before the start of the holidays.
Isn't that just the way it goes?
