Duck Happenings

I didn't know you could learn so much from a duck. Duck? That's right! We are the proud owners of a cute little duck - well, not so little now. But we got him when he was only a day old. Some neighbors gave him to us and we just love him - he actually belongs to Curious George.

We were given two ducks to begin with. C.G. named them "Peck" and "Dot". "Peck was the runt of the litter - so to speak. He was smaller than Dot and a lot weaker. He hatched the same day we got him. The neighbor took him away from the mother because she didn't want her to kill him (ducks will often do that if they have too many). This mother duck hatch about 15 eggs I think! Here's a picture of peck when he was only a few days old. Isn't he adorable?
Anyway, we lost Peck after a week - he died on the fourth of July. He just got sick and died. It was really a sad time. The next week we got another duck to replace Peck. This one was over a week old, wild and very large compared to Dot. He ran away the minute he got out of the box and it took us over an hour to get him back. Then he ran away again and when we finally found him, he was dead. That was another sad time. C.G. cried a lot during these two incidents. It's hard to watch your kids go through these experiences, but it's really good for them. It helps them learn about life and the life and death process.

We decided to not replace that one, so now we just have Dot. C loves him. Dot follows C around like he's his mother. It's so cute to watch.

I say "he" but we really don't know if that's true. In fact, we are hoping it's a "she" so that she'll give us eggs to eat. We've heard duck eggs are good. We'll see I guess.

Dot is about 7 weeks old now. He is going through "adolescence" where his quiet little peeps are turning into quacks. It's been fun to watch. He's growing wings and getting a little more scared of people. All except C.G. He still lets him pet him and hand feed him. He's still his mama. :)

The duck has been a great confidence builder for C. C loves that he follows him around everywhere. Another good thing the duck has brought are the "duck visitors." That's what C calls them. We live in kind of a quiet, older neighborhood where there are not a lot of kids C.G's age. There are some girls down the street and they happen to love animals. When they found out we had a duck, they've been visiting almost every day since then. C.G. loves the attention and it has been a great learning experience for him. After they "see" the duck, the duck visitors usually stay and play with C for quite a while. It's been a very good thing.

So anyway, we've been working on building Dot's cage. It took a while, but we're happy with how it turned out. Here's a few recent pictures of him in his new cage.