First time in pool

At first they were all terrified...

Then they started to loosen up a bit



....swimming....


Twins?

Not quite soaked to the skin yet...

Sheldon McDuck! You can tell it's him because of the little swirl on the back of his head. My favorite! But shh...don't tell the others!

What you don't see in these pictures are these ferocious little ducks trying to climb up me and Amanda's legs with their sharp little dagger nails...no, just kidding. They were trying to get out of the water and were using our legs as "docks." I got video of that...if I can ever figure out how to get it on here, I will post it as well!

Proud Mama and Her Babies

So, it was my complete intent to let mama raise her babies outside. However, the father tried to kill on yesterday, and so did my dog, Chloe. So, we brought them in. These pictures were taken at about midnight, and the last three had just hatched. They were still wet, so we brought Mama in with them.

At first they didn't know what to think of her, and she didn't really know what to think of them.
You can see the little wet one at the back of the duck pile.


Eventually, they all laid down, including another wet one on the right, which is Sheldon McDuck. I think he was the very last to hatch.

Pickles was really nervous, so she stood there with them, but it took forever to get her to lay down.

Here, the attempted baby-duck-killer looks on intently. Bad dog, Chloe. BAD DOG!

Finally, mama and babies rest peacefully!

So cute...

Here is proud Mama Pickles on her nest. If you look a little to the left of her, you can see one of the chicks under her, plus an additional 13 eggs, ALL of which hatched on Sunday!

This was the first little guy to hatch. You can tell he isn't completely dry because he's not all fluffy.

I am absolutely smitten with the little grey ones.

At this point (11am on Sunday) these are the only 3 that have hatched.

If you look at his leg, he looks like he has leggings on! I can't wait to see what these little babies look like as adults!

Hatching!

The first ones started hatching Saturday night (6/23) but I was silly and did not take pictures. Here is what I woke up to Sunday morning! Yay! These are kinda icky, just FYI.

Here you can see its little beak and its wet grey feathers.

It was crazy to see how they were positioned inside the egg. It made my neck hurt.

Almost there! This is exhausting work!

The one on the far right is the one that is hatching in the above photos. The one on the far left is my surprise I woke up to Sunday morning!

The Proud Parents!

These are the proud parents of the ducklings that hatched this weekend. I have yet to upload all of the pictures I took of them, but here are some pictures of the parents for starters.

This is Chester, the daddy. I believe he is a Saxony duck. He hatched sometime in April or May of 2005. He is seen here, sitting in my lap. He can be rather aggressive at times, chasing our smallest dog around the yard, relentlessly.

Here you see Pickles the Cayuga duck, and Chloe, my dog. Pickles hatched in February of 2005. This was her first clutch of fertile eggs.