The ducks are now nine days old. In celebration of this occasion, they got to go outside and play. They have outgrown their mailing box, but luckily we still have moving boxes. Not only are the ducks bigger, but they are smarter and faster and more difficult to catch to put in the box to take outside. The first duckling in the box and the last one left outside the box both peep extremely sadly…confused and frightened at suddenly being all alone. Once they are reunited with their sisters, they stop the sad peeping instantly. Andy decided to start picking up the ducks more often to try and get them more used to being handled.

Since ducks don’t eat birthday cake, I decided to give them just a cake pan.

Yes..that is a cake pan we regularly use. If you visit us and have cake or brownies, you may very well be eating something cooked in a pan that ducklings played in. At one point, two of the girls were practicing their Olympic synchronized swimming routine.

When the ducklings were done with their birthday swim, they hopped out of the pan and wiggled and shook like dogs to get some of the water off. They wiggled their little tails and flapped their little wings and shimmied and jigged. Then back into their brooder for a nap.