This morning when I went up to feed the ducks I was concerned when I couldn’t hear them cheeping through the outside door. They were still fairly quiet even after I got into the work room next to the room they stay in…and considering the door connecting the two was open, I got a bit worried by the relative silence. Usually the girls are cheeping and peeping and honking and doing little tap dances when I visit them in the morning. What was wrong?

I walked into the duck room…and five little ducklings swarmed around my feet. Escapees! After the initial surprise wore off, I began to wonder where the other two girls were. I quickly found one still in the brooder, but the seventh was nowhere to be seen. Did she get outside somehow where she was eaten by a hungry raccoon? Was she stuck in the table saw? Arg!

I decided to take the girls down to their pen/tractor in the hopes that this would draw out the last duckling. When I pulled back the cardboard barrier around the brooder to let the sixth duckling out, number seven peeked out from where she was hiding (stuck?) behind the cardboard and under the edge of the brooder/pool. Phew.

Feeling like a parent on a school field trip making sure no kids were left behind in the reptile house, I counted and recounted feathery heads to make sure everyone was present as we tumbled down the hill to the duck tractor. I think we need to get the duck house secured and ready to inhabit ASAP because the ducklings can no longer be contained by cardboard and a baby pool.

When I went back into the house to tell Andy what had happened, I was giggly because escaped ducklings is rather cute. Andy was less than amused, however, and said, “Yeah, you think it’s funny, but you aren’t the one who has to go clean up duck poop all over the workshop floors!” HAHAHAHAHAAH!

Speaking of cute critters, here’s a photo of Sana sprawled in the sun.