Ducklings!!!!

We’ve all been dreaming of them for such a long time, and now they’re finally here!!  3 fuzzy little day-old Indian Runner ducklings came home with us this past Wednesday.

The duckings are just about the cutest things we’ve ever seen!!  They’re comical, inquisitive, interested in people, and love to snuggle their little heads in the crook of your arm.

The little drake and two ducks will make a great slug-seek-and-destroy team, as well as provide us with up to 400 eggs/year (for the pair of females), and endless entertainment.  Besides being good egg-layers with sweet dispositions, we choose Indian Runners over other breeds because they cannot fly (or cross any fence much over 2 ft tall), and do not need a pond.

While Indian Runners don’t go broody easily, and often don’t make good mothers, we got a drake in the hopes that one of our chickens will go broody and raise a few clutches for us down the road if we want to increase the flock (Chickens, especially Buff Orpingtons like Cookie, will sit until the clutch hatches (a few days longer than chicken eggs), and then care for the ducklings with devotion.)

The ducklings were a mix of fawn/penciled and we won’t know exactly how they’ll look for another number of weeks, but they sure are adorable right now!