Duck! Duck! Duck!

Back in June I got my wife some ducklings for her birthday. Seemed like kind of an odd gift, but it's what she wanted. A friend of mine who raises meat chickens for a living was getting 10 for his aunt, and the minimum order from his hatchery was 15. So we ended up with five little adorable Cayuga ducklings.

A few months later, his aunt decided she didn't want hers. Sadly in the time she had them she lost two, but we happily agreed to take the remaining eight. We are now the proud parents of 9 ducks and 4 drakes.

Everything I had read said that if they didn't start laying before winter I'd have to wait until spring. We started getting one egg per day a few weeks ago, but they seemed kind of smaller that what I'd expect. They were about the same size as my chicken eggs. Well today this showed up in the yard. Look at the size of that thing!

Needless to say, my wife is very happy. She now has a steady supply of duck eggs for her baking needs. I'm hoping that once they all start laying I'll be able to bring a dozen or so per week to market along with our chicken eggs.

Just for fun, I think I'll try and enter the 'Ducklings in Grass' photo into the @papa-pepper Combination Photograph Week 16 photo contest, so here is my proof of original content.