Today I was lucky and could observe how ducklings develop several traits characteristic of ducks, by the end of their first 24 hours of life: they pick at everything that seems interesting, they move in a flock, and they mess around, their feet in food and water. They become interested in water already at the age of half a day.

Hello, World

Yesterday in the morning, our first duckling of this year hatched. Hatching is hard work that takes hours, and once it’s been done it’s necessary to get a good sleep.

Where Does One Find Friends? Pry One out of the Egg!

In the evening, the duckling used quite some force to obtain a buddy. So you can simply find friends, but you can as well pry them out of the egg.

Gang Up and Goof Around!

By this morning, we had four ducklings already and it was time to take them out of the incubator. The first thing was to provide them with water and a bit later during the day, I added the feed. And here we have the typical ducks. With their feet in water and the food in the water.

Yes, you can here quail in the background in this video.

… and Then Go to Sleep on top of Mother

The most important thing in life is sleeping after all, and this cannot be left to the others to take care of. A true Indian runner duck makes attempts to climb as high as possible during its first day of life and the artificial mother is a good choice to climb upon. There is lots of space for taking a nap on top of the mother – and it’s especially cool if you are the eldest and the most courageous one.