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The children all want to share their ducks with you, via pictures that is. Every year for the past 6 years, we buy baby ducks that are 1-2 days old from a local feed and seed. This year we are going to try this in the house in the upstate which does NOT have a creek in the back yard. Well, we do have a small plastic swimming pool. We are hoping to acclimate them to our land which does have a creek on it and maybe they'll stick around. We've never had any of the ducks we've raised come back before.
There's a neat story to how this started. We bought our Snee Farm house (in Mt. Pleasant) on the 28th of Feb. 2003. The end of March, a week or so after moving in, a daddy and mommy mallard met us on the paving stones at the driveway having come up from the back yard. To this day, you can count on ducks arriving at the creek in our back yard and on the no man's land between the creek and golf course about Mar. 30 or 31st; same days every year. Of course we fed them and they would come and go until late summer. In May, the mama duck made a nest and we watched her lay eggs, one each day, until the raccoons ate them. A lady in our church told me how she had bought baby mallards and raised them and then let them go on her pond on her farm. She explained exactly how she did it; it sounded fairly simple and I was intrigued. The next year, we went to Cordoray's on John's Island, bought a lamp, 2 ducks, and some chicken feed and we were on our way. Last year, we got a little more sophisticated and bought a feeding and water bowl to use with mason jars. Also, last year we bought 4 ducks, before it had been 2 each time. We've had one duck drown (suffocate? in the muck in the creek); we've had a pair go off before they could fly; they just walked away one day; and we've had one visit our homeschool support group meeting. (A fun story, Scott brought it into the church in a box, the custodian happened to be on elevator with him and Scott was so hoping Ernest wouldn't quack). That same duck, Ernest, imprinted on us so much that he/she followed us constantly and Pappy trained him to fly in races with him and the children. Our ducks have personality and when it is time for them to stay outside all day (it's a gradual process), when evening comes, they know it is time to go to the garage and will make lots of noise until you let them in. They also like to get loose in the garage (we've learned to cover the rubbermaid bins we use with chicken wire) and hide. It has been a fun experience for the children and I don't know how I will ever tell them "no". We have even had to travel with the ducks before. I do have to write that Jeff is a tremendously good sport. So here are pictures of this year's batch, Tuffy, Tom, Wilson, and Clara (named for Clara Barton). It used to be that I did most of the caring, coddling, and mommy duck stuff, now Scott has done it, even having them sleep in his room the first few nights. It won't be long now, before they will be bigger, start to smell and need to go to the garage. Scott decided since 3/4 of our children are boys that we would have 3 boy names and 1 girl name this year. Of course, we don't know at this point what they are; it's always fun to guess. Enjoy our pictures and we will keep you updated.
