Something's a-fowl

Last weekend we increased the size of our family by ten. Four ducklings and six chicks, to be precise. We put them in the kids' wading pool in the laundry room where I figured the mess would be contained. I was either stupid, naive, overly optimistic or a combination of the three. There are cedar shavings everywhere in my house. I mean everywhere. When I change the toddler's diaper I find cedar shavings.



We mostly bought the birds for pets. We will eat the eggs that the chickens will eventually lay, but basically we want to be able to go outside and have chickens and ducks to watch. The little pamphlet that came with the birds says that if you want your birds to be tame you need to hold them for several minutes a couple of times a day. We have encouraged our kids to spend a lot of time with the chicks, which hasn't been hard at all. They have loved them! Something that I didn't expect was this:


He won't leave them alone! So far he has been very gentle with them, just giving them some exploratory sniffs and tongue baths, but I wonder what he's thinking.

"Which of you are Extra Crispy and which of you are Original Recipe?"

The ducklings already love the water. I, however, don't love cleaning the tub after they're done swimming.




We had to upgrade to a taller container because some of the birds were able to jump out of the wading pool. This one isn't much taller so we may need to upgrade again. With any luck, by then the birdies will have their grown up feathers and be able to go outside to their coop.

We are going to eventually name all of the birds but right now we have only named two. The little Rhode Island Red chick is Maybelline and the smaller of the mallard ducks is Jeffrey-effrey-effrey, after the gosling in "Charlotte's Web." We are open to any name suggestions you may have.