janis

for more duck information

I am not a duck expert.  I never have been, never will be, and will certainly never profess to be one.  The only things I know about ducks come from having 3 of them, learning from other pet duck owners, and doing research on the web. There are a few very important things you should know about ducks: 

Do not feed them bread!  Bread is junk food and gives them virtually no nutritional value.  If you must feed ducks on your local pond, give them nutritious food such as spinach, romaine lettuce, chopped tomatoes, Cheerios, or commercial non-medicated duck or poultry feed.   

Before buying that cute duckling as an Easter gift, think long and hard.  While ducks make great pets, they are also a lot of work.  If kept outdoors, they require predator-proof outdoor pens.  If kept inside, you can get a diaper harness for them to manage the ducky poo issue.  Regardless of whether you keep them inside or out, there's always the issue of who takes care of them while you're away from home.  It's not like you can simply drop them off at the kennel!   We've been really fortunate to have neighbors who will take care of them, but not everyone is so lucky.   And ducks can live to be 12-20 years old, depending on the breed.  It's a long-term commitment you're making when you take home that cute duckling. 

In case you're interested in learning more about ducks, and from people who know more than I do, I've added a few links to some great websites.  Some are for information, some are rescue groups, and one is just pure fun.  If you're ever feeling low and need a pick-me-up, check out Mr. Flapper's website.  It's full of incredible pictures of a duck family in Seattle, told with a great humorous style.  The story starts about two years ago when Flapper came to live with his "human" as a baby, gained a mate, had ducklings, and, well, you just have to see it for yourself!  Check it out sometime!

a balancing act

We continued to bring the ducks in every night, mainly for their protection, but also because we wanted them to be tame.  A typical evening would include feeding them tomato treats (they loooove tomatoes!), preening, sleeping, then being put into their pen for the night. 

This picture turned out very grainy, but I thought I’d share it anyway.  It’s a good example of when one duck does something, the others have to do it too.  (Birds of a feather flock together.)  Here they are, ready for a nap, all balancing on one foot.  In fact, not only are they all balanced on one leg, they’re all balancing on the RIGHT leg.  And not only do they each have their heads tucked into a wing, they’re all tucked into the same wing.  And while they’d like us to think they’re napping, each one has an eagle eye open to watch what’s going on.

Louie is at the far left (in front of the others), then Huey, then Dewey.  We didn’t realize it at the time, but Louie was already showing signs of being male.  His tail feathers are starting to turn white while the girls are maintaining their characteristic brown and black camouflage markings.

Here are some interesting duck facts for you:  Did you know that ducks can sleep with only half their brain?  The other half stays alert to watch for predators.  And they have two eyelids.  One is transparent.  They close this one while swimming under water or flying (to protect from the wind).  The heavier eyelid only closes when they go to sleep.  That’s why they never appear to blink. 

This picture shows them at about 5-6 weeks.  You can see that they’re fully feathered now, complete with flight feathers (the longest, outermost feathers on the wings).  They look like adults, but they’re still babies inside.  They won’t mate or lay eggs for several months yet, and it will still be awhile before we even know who’s a boy and who’s a girl.

The awkward age

Here the ducklings are about 3 to 3.5 weeks old.  Todd has added a wooden shelf to their pond for them to rest on while they’re not in the water.  At this stage, we would leave them outside for most of the day, but they always came in at night. 

They have started to get their feathers, but still have a lot of down.  Somewhere along the line, Dewey developed two triangular-shaped white spots at the base of her neck.  We were glad for this as it was becoming more difficult to tell them apart.  In this picture, Dewey is at the left, then Huey, then Louie (whose head is down by Huey’s belly for some unknown reason.  Camera shy?)  They had just hopped out of the pool from a swim and are ready to start preening.  They can spend an hour at a time preening.  You can see that their bills are lightening, their legs and toes have lost much of the blackness, but the webs are still very dark.

This is Louie at about 4 weeks old.  His front half is feathered but the back is still down.  You can see the little white shafts for feathers on his wings where his flight feathers will come in.  His tail feathers are starting to grow too. His face is getting darker and the second line below his eye is nearly gone. His bill is getting very light but his legs and feet still look pretty splotchy.  Overall, he looks very gangly and awkward.

Ducks are naturally fearful, unlike other pets you might have.  The main difference is that most of our pets (dogs, cats) are predatory in nature.  They have been tamed to fit into our lifestyle.  Ducks, however, are not predators.  They are prey.  Because of this, they notice every little thing overhead (could it be a hawk?) and can seem skittish.  With gentle coaxing, and a lot of time & patience, they can learn to trust and do become quite tame.  And yes, they even become cuddly and affectionate, though not in the way you experience with a cat or dog.

Mesa CK Convention

We are in the midst of preparations for the Mesa, AZ CK Convention coming up April 21 & 22.  Once again our products will be featured in the Scrapbooks and More booth.  This awesome store is located in Lake Havasu City, AZ and we've joined forces with them for the Arizona shows more times than I can count. 

Once again, I'll be teaching two classes:  Techniques with Fibers: Elegant and Easy, and Advanced Techniques with Fibers.  Both classes were designed by the very talented Sharon Margiotta.  They've been totally revamped since last year so even if you've taken classes with me before, you'll learn new techniques with different templates.  I'm thrilled that Lazar StudioWERX is supplying the patterned paper for these classes.  All of their papers are prints of paintings created by the owner of the company and they're fabulous.  Registration is now open and classes are already starting to fill up.  Each of our classes sold out last year so please don't wait too long and be disappointed.  See you in April!

Adolescence

Ducklings grow very fast.  We noticed changes every day, and, no, we didn’t take enough pictures.  I’m not yet in the digital age (to change very soon), so we just sort of took pictures and hoped that they turned out. 

One afternoon, when the ducklings were about 2.5 weeks old, Todd decided that they should check out the little pond he had made for the fish and the turtle.  It’s right outside our office window and is a tranquil spot that the birds enjoy too.   The ducks didn’t know quite what to think but they took to it, well, like ducks to water.  J   (We’re big on duck sayings at our house.)

This picture shows (L-R) Huey, Dewey, & Louie.  Louie is perched on a submerged rock (lazy boy).  You can see that his feet are starting to change colors.  The toes are turning orange, but the webs are still very dark. 

In this picture, Huey and Dewey are checking out the rest of the pond.  We discovered later on (several months later) that they’re both girls.  They tend to stick together. 

Louie’s back on his rock, testing out his wings.  You can see that they’re not very impressive just yet, but from very little, ducks like to flap and stretch.

This was actually their only excursion to this pond.  It is simply way too small for them and there’s a risk that the turtle will bite their feet.  (You do NOT want to know what he did to the tadpoles.)

Why we have ducks

It is not my intent to make this a “duck blog”, but I since I’ve been asked, I’ll start my blogging adventure with the story of the ducks.

To give you a little history, I have always been a cat person.  From little on up, my choice of pets was kittens and cats.  Then I met Todd.  A dog man.  That’s okay.  He likes cats too so I knew it would be alright.  However, I also knew that having a dog would be in my future.  Not just any dog.  A BIG dog.  In Todd’s mind, it isn’t really a dog unless it’s at least 60 pounds and the bigger, the better.  That’s okay too, as I’ve never been particularly fond of small, yippy dogs.  However, when I was about 7 or 8 years old, I was chased by a German Shepherd and so I didn’t have a fondness for big dogs either.  It was just easier to stick with cats.

Making a long story short:  Todd eventually brought home a Lab/Great Dane mix who had been neglected and abandoned.  I then learned that one can be both a cat person AND a dog person.  Not long after that, he brought home a 3-week-old kitten who wasn’t weaned yet, but was going to be (literally) thrown out with the trash if a home wasn’t found.  Soon after that, a desert tortoise crawled under his work truck and came home with him.  A parrot made its home with us for a few days while we searched for her parents.  Then Todd found a turtle in a ditch while walking the dog and, you guessed it, we have a turtle, which necessitated building a pond, and, well, you might as well have fish if you have a pond.  Then came the tadpoles…  During the last few years, he has made a practice of feeding the neighborhood birds (mostly doves, but we often have one or two quail families in the backyard).  And a year ago, we discovered a squirrel family nesting in our backyard so now we feed them too.  Then one day he discovered a parakeet feeding with the doves in the backyard.  He caught it and we kept him in the house for awhile.

So you see, he’s not just a “dog man”.  He’s a cat man, a bird man, a fish man, a tortoise man, a squirrel man.  I married the all-around animal lover.  (Why don’t these things ever come up in pre-marital counseling?) 

So fast forward with me to May, 2005.  I was in Detroit for about 5 days, teaching and demonstrating our products at the Great Lakes Mega Meet (a GREAT show…I’ll be there again this coming May).  Todd picked me up at the airport, brought me home, we walked in, headed toward the kitchen, and Todd said, sheepishly, “I have something to show you.” I had heard that tone before.  I knew instantly that it was going to be an animal.  It was only a matter of what kind.  We walked into the kitchen, and there was a cage with three baby ducklings.  Okay, he got me. They were cute little balls of fluff peeping at me.  How could anyone say no to that?  It turns out that he had gone to the feed store to get some bird seed and they had a bunch of 4-day-old Rouen ducklings for sale. Not being one to resist the cuteness factor, he succumbed and took three home with him.

Unfortunately, duckling sex can only be determined by professionals (and even then, it’s not 100% certain) so we had no clue if we had males or females.  We would have to wait until they got their male plumage (they all start out looking like girls) or until someone laid an egg.  Because of this, there are a lot of ducks out there with interesting names.  Todd named ours Huey, Dewey, and Louie. 

Rouens are very similar to Mallards in coloring.  However, Mallards are wild and Rouens are domestic.  Rouens are also about twice as big, much heavier, and can rarely fly.  As ducklings, they look nearly identical, but Mallards have only one dark stripe across their eye while Rouens have two.

Within a day, Todd had created an elevated “pond” for them on our patio.  They stayed inside most of the time, then went for supervised swims on the patio a couple of times a day.  Since ducklings don’t have their feathers yet, they can easily become waterlogged and drown.  Betcha didn’t know that.  It’s critical that they have a place where they can easily crawl up to and dry off.  (I didn’t know it either.  We’ve learned a lot about ducks in the last 10 months!)

The ducklings are still pretty tiny here at about 5 or 6 days old. Louie is taking his first bite of apple.  He wasn’t impressed. To give you some perspective, their food (chopped spinach & apple, plus a small bowl of duck chow) is sitting on 4 pavers within their pond.  Each paver is about 2.5x5”. 

In this picture, Louie is checking out the duck chow.  You’ll notice that his bill is black. Rouens do not have the bright orange bill that Pekins have.  (The Aflac duck is a Pekin.)  They change color as they grow up, but they never become truly orange.

And here Louie is preening his belly. Preening is how they keep their feathers clean & neat, and pull out the old down/feathers to prepare for the new ones. You can see that his feet are black too.  They will turn orange as he gets older.

So how do I know these pictures are Louie?  They all look alike, right?  Don’t you know that every mother can tell her babies apart?  J   Okay, there is a secret and it has to do with the stripes by their eyes.  We noticed that the lower stripe was different on each duckling.  Huey’s was a full-length stripe, Dewey’s had a break in it, and Louie’s was more like a dot.

Ah, they grow up so fast!  It’s hard to believe they were this tiny.  And seriously, they do grow up fast!  Stay tuned for the next set of pics!

Finally!

I remember the first time I heard the term "blog".  HUH?  was my response.  I didn't get it.  At all.  Why on earth would someone want to keep their communication on a public forum when it was so easy to email?  Well, it's been over a year since that time, and here I am, kicking and screaming, finally joining in.  Okay, maybe not literally kicking and screaming, but I tend to be hesitant and skeptical of change ("tell me WHY") and slow to conform.  But a good friend convinced me that my musings would be important to the masses so here I am. 

What can you expect to read about here?  Mostly business stuff.  Timeless Touches occupies the majority of my days, and even some of my dreams at night.  But, it isn't my whole, entire life (contrary to what my mother thinks).  I suspect that you will hear about the antics of our pets quite frequently.  We have a 3-year-old Lab who is still quite the puppy and 3 Rouen ducks.  Yep, ducks.  They are interesting, amusing, and affectionate (who knew?). 

So join me on this blogging journey, won't you?  I can't guarantee I'll update every day, but hopefully I'll have a few important things to convey each week.  I look forward to your comments!