Hot Hot Hot!

Record heat yesterday. It was 105º where I live. Yuck! Have you ever seen ducklings pant? It is cute and sad at the same time. At least ducklings can take a dip in their "swimming pool" to cool off. Poor chickens just have to scratch a cool spot in the dirt to try to get some comfort.

Thankfully we finished building the ducks' new home right in the nick of time. Poor Greg has been working extra-long hours just about every day, and has had to work the past two Saturdays on top of that, so I really hate to ask him to work on my projects in his very limited free time, but there is just no way I could have done it without him. I consider myself to be a fairly talented individual, but carpentry is not one of my skills. I am a total spazz when it comes to building stuff.

For some reason, this project ended up being one of the hardest things we've done. Actually, I know the reason. I didn't want to buy any materials unless absolutely necessary. We have a pretty significant wood pile going, overflowing with all of the extra boards and scraps from previous projects. I wanted to save money first of all, but also use up the pile of wood before it got all yucky and spider-laden. Respectable goals, for sure, but it hampers the design and execution of a construction project when you are trying to make due with random sizes and lengths of boards. It got built, but it was an ugly job and it's an ugly structure. But it's safe and comfortable, and lucky for us ducks aren't that picky about looks. You can't really tell how ugly it is until you are standing right next to it. From across the yard it looks perfectly fine.

So the ducks got moved into their new home, and like I said, not a moment too soon, especially with this heat wave. They needed some space. Their wire pen kept them safe and it sure was easy for me to clean out, not like the cardboard chicken brooder, but it was getting too small too fast. The ducklings are growing like mad, much quicker that the chicks, at least that's how it seems to everyone here. I thought chicks pooped a lot but ducks win that contest hands down. Now that I've phased out their starter crumbles, they seem to poop a little less but for a while there I had to change their bedding twice a day, it was that bad. Just one of the many differences between ducks and chickens...