I got up excited to see if everyone had survived the night. You see, I've never done this before, I have 2 cats, I'm a bit of a forgetful-facer, and I'm sure I'll lose some of them as a result. But not today -- all 21 babies had survived the night! The chicks seemed to be comfortable after I raised the red heat lamp a few inches, and the ducks were still chasing each other and playing in their water. They had played in their water so much, in fact, that there was about a half pint left in the quart jar and a very soggy newspaper.
I took to cleaning out the duck brooder first, moving the ducklings to a cardboard box while I wadded up the newspapers, hosed out the bin, refilled the waterer, and reassembled the entire rig. I also grabbed a flat rock to elevate the waterer about a half inch, putting it more at beak level than as a tempting pool. The ducks seemed pleased with the changes, and I tried adding about an inch of pine bedding to their brooder, mainly to absorb some of their watery mess. Two tried eating the shavings, and they all drug the shavings into the water, where it looked like something tasty, so I modified it a bit. I left the pine bedding but covered it completely with newspapers. The redesign seems to work: the ground is drier, the ducks can still play in the water and not wet their food, and they have a softer surface than plastic lined with newspaper to walk on. They are all very spooked by me, so I make it a point to move slowly, to touch them often, and to talk, whistle, or hum while I'm in the room with them so they can start to get used to human interaction. I tried hand feeding them, but they're too spooked for that right yet.
The chicks might be too stupid to know that I might be a threat, and they don't mind at all if you touch them, so long as you move slowly. It's amazing how much the chicks in particular seem to have developed in terms of chicken-like-habits overnight. Yesterday they were stupid, cute, yellow balls of chirping fluff; today they are hopping around, scratching the ground with their feet, pecking the ground like you'd expect, and flapping their wee little wings. Their brooder was much less of a mess this morning and took half as long to clean out. They hadn't used nearly as much of their water as the ducks, but I asked MrCoven to clean it out and fill it again while I hosed out the bin just to be safe. The chicks waited patiently in the same cardboard box until their brooder had been reset, and then acted a little chilly when I returned them. Once the air heated up again, about 15 minutes later, they were fine and moving all around again. I didn't attempt pine bedding again, and will probably wait until they stop trying to eat their own poop -- they have a very loose definition of what "food" is right now, and until that narrows a bit, I'm not going to give them any opportunity to make fatal mistakes. I picked some fresh grass and threw it down, which seemed to interest the chicks. If I can find a cricket or a beetle, I'll let them play with that too.
So far, both MrCoven and I are very pleased with our decision to raise ducks and chicks.
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