Wanna see something really cute?

[HobieSport]

Okay, what is about the size and weight of a classic telephone when full grown, walks upright, has feathers, eats garden slugs and lays tasty eggs and is very sociable and entertaining?

Why Runner Ducks of course.  A fascinating breed, originally descended from Mallards in the East Indies over 2,000 years ago.  They were bred to be able to walk (and run) upright and be herded several miles a day through harvested rice fields to glean the extra grain and eat the slugs and bugs.  At night they go into a duck house to avoid predators.

Anyway, the phones are great fun but I decided to also go for a little variety with some new live creatures. The seven newly hatched ducklings just arrived by jet from Texas to California this morning, all very active and healthy, and are now eating and drinking and sleeping and pooping in the simple brooder that I set for them.  The are all female so we'll get lot's of eggs after six months.

If you've seen the movie "Babe", about the talking pig that herds sheep, the duck character is a Runner Duck. They are full of character and very amusing.

The last photo shows what the ducks should look like as adults in the "fawn and white" color.

I wonder if I can train them to answer to phones?

So are you ready to say "Awww..."?

[McHeath]

Going into ducks eh?  We raised all sorts of critters when I was growing up, ducks, geese, quail, pigeons, chickens, guinea hens, goats, cattle, sheep, pigs, horses, turkeys, and of course dogs and cats.

I think the ducks will be a fun project, they have personality and are interesting creatures.  We had an incubation system for the fowl, always very cool to watch them hatch. 

[Bill Cahill]

Hmm. is this all it's quacked up to be?
Bill Cahill

[HobieSport]

Hmm. is this all it's quacked up to be?
Bill Cahill

No quacking for now until they turn into teenagers in a couple of months.
I call them The Magnificent Seven and introduce the gang as "My Peeps".

[McHeath]

The missus says they are cute, so you'll get chicks in droves!

Get it, "chicks" in droves?? 

Okay, lame joke.   

[HobieSport]

A "lame duck" joke perhaps?  Actually I'm starting to collect good duck jokes and stories.  They just invite the silly side, don't they?

Speaking of being "cute", my GF Mariko thought that getting ducks was just another of my hair brained projects, you know, like the telephones.  But when the ducklings arrived this morning and we put them in the brooder Mariko just sat and stared at them and made cooing sounds for the longest time...Heh heh.  And unlike telephones (which I still love...I'm not really switching to "the duck side" ) the ducks will lay tasty eggs.  Though there is still the question of whether phones actually reproduce when we're not looking...

Photo caption: "I'll have my Peeps talk with your Peeps"

[foots]

Since nobody else is going to say it, AFLAC!!!
Cute ducks. I didn't know anything about runner ducks. We had some peking ducks, muscovy, and mallards as well as a couple of geese. I had a female mallard that used to follow me everywhere, like a puppy. You'll like having ducks and of course, scrambled duck eggs.

[HobieSport]

Here's another picture of the ducks when they were eight days old.  They grow very fast, at about an ounce per day.  Don't worry, the 302 doesn't stay with the ducks; I just put it there for the pictures for a sense of scale.

[McHeath]

A sense of scale, lol!  This will be our Global Secret Code to Other Phone Piends, instead of putting rulers or tape measures in our pictures for scale we will put classic era rotary phones.

I can see it now...

"And in this picture of the recently uncovered Sumerian mummified king Ulkhhazatshu, we see a Western Electric 302, metal case and 4H dial, placed by the remains of the left foot for scale"

[HobieSport]

 

I'm wondering if I plugged the 302 in and had it ring, if the ducks would imprint on it and think they were a species of rotary phone. One of the ducks in the last picture seems to be thinking along those lines...
"Are you my mother?"

[McHeath]

Love the duck updates.  We even had a duck pond when I was a kid, a hole we dug that was about 12 feet across and 2 feet deep and lined with concrete.  It had bricks around the edge and a brick staircase built in one side which I don't think a duck ever used.  My job was to pump it out every week on Saturday, which I was lazy about. 

I'd be scared of that big bad 302 as well, all dressed in black and carrying that curly whip! 

Are you going to have a fenced yard for the ducks or let them wander at will? 

[McHeath]

When I lived in Texas it was in a trailer as well, bordering a forest area, and sometimes the coons and possums would get in a death match under the floor of the trailer over the cat food.  It was colorful to say the least.

Wish all I had to worry about in my Hood was skunks and coons these days, that would be a nice change.

[HobieSport]

Just observe their hideousness at nearly two months old:

[bingster]

Awwww, they're still cute.  I just can't believe how big they got in such a short time.

You stocked up on orange sauce?

[HobieSport]

Duck Update.

I'm still not quite sure what went wrong with this horrible experiment. Oh the Horror. They're... ALIVE!!!

(Please note that no harm was done to a perfectly good 302 in the making of these pictures.)