Well luv a duck!

Chooks I know a fair bit about. I've had them on and off for many years now so I always feel comfortable with what to do with them and in being around them. We have two lots, shavers, who are smaller than the meat birds like the Plymouth Barred Rocks we also have, but lay bigger eggs. They are also the ones who are the nosiest birds outside of the south island parrots. If there is something going on, they want to know all about it.
Which was the case a few Sundays ago when a chance comment made some weeks before resulting in an offer for some ducks came home to roost.
The woman in question had offered me some Khaki Campbell ducks at that time and I had thought, well, why not? Seeing as duck eggs are superb for cooking and many people prefer them to eat as opposed to chook eggs.
She turned up one Saturday not long after that and said, "Ok, my husband says I have too many - can you take them tomorrow? I'll catch them and bring them to you."
Of course I wasn't going to say no.
Luckily, Ken is like the magpies we have a lot of around here. He collects all kinds of things, shiny or not.
I often threaten to take it all to the dump, but he always tells me he'll find a use for it.
This was the case with some 900mm chain link fence and waratah standards.
In thinking back on how we made it, I am glad there was no one around with a video. He's pounding the tops of the standard with the biggest sledgehammer you ever saw (which bent one of them a bit!) and then I'm foot up on one, pulling the chain link fence as tight as I could - until Ken remembered he had some strainers in the container. So we got the little yard built, with the idea of them being in there until they got used to their space as home. We would then let them out into the orchard, once we have the hurricane fencing up to stop stray dogs from getting in and worrying them, the chooks and the sheep.
Then there was the question of shelter for them.
We had a HUGE old dog kennel Ken had built some years before, Now, those who know Ken will also know that he never does anything by halves. Why use a 2x2 when a 6x4 will make it stronger? (We will worry about lifting it later). That dog kennel used to house both our German shepherds - and Ken on a bad hair day. ;)
So we figured that it would make the perfect shelter. Ken ripped off the verandah and the front piece and put it in place, along with a deep bed of untreated wood shavings.
I wanted something for them to drink out of - I knew nothing about ducks, but figured, being water birds, they'd need something a bit better than the chook's fancy water basins.
I remembered an old plastic pond I had, so unearthed it, cleaned it and filled it with water.
We thought it all looked pretty good.
So too did the ducks when they arrived, honking and carrying on like their throats were about to be cut.

But they took to the shelter like it was a Hilton Hotel and, as I was to discover, in being mostly Khaki Campbells whom, I was told, don't fly and don't need water to swim in, suddenly found some genetic programming from somewhere which made them say "HEY! Pond! Swim!"
Which was truly funny, because it is only big enough for one duck to swim in at a time and the other two will peck at the one in it wanting it to get out so that they can squabble over whose turn it is next. They love it, even if it has turned into a headache for me in trying to keep the water clean. The bottom line is, you can't - I never knew ducks were such dirty beggars! An emptied, clean and fresh watered pond will last one day. They like to wash several times a day.

They are very talkative and Mum, who lives about 100 yards away and who is very deaf, can hear them when they are talking, which is either at feed time (chooks get fed first and the ducks know they are next) or when something is around the pen they think should not be.
In being told they can't fly, we've discovered it's more a case of they don't - but they can. We came out there one day and both the drake and one of the ducks were racing up and down the outside of the pen fence. In order to get them back in, because they were on the paddock side, not the home section side, we had to undo the back fence and herd them very gently back in, without letting the third duck out. It took 20 minutes, but we got there, so to circumvent them getting out again, we put strawberry netting over the top of the pen. Which is where the nosiness of the shavers came in - as Ken was standing in the chook pen on a bucket securing the higher part, the shavers were standing on his feet on the bucket, looking up as if to say, "What ARE you doing Dad?"

We are still waiting on an egg from the ducks...