Well, Jed has wanted runner ducks for a while, mostly because they look so funny; so I got him some ducks. There is a gentleman out in Cal Valley that is getting rid of most of his animals and so I called and asked to pick up as many runner ducks as possible. He thought he had 10 runners but it turned out he only had seven. It was a gorgeous drive out to Cal Valley, all the hills were green and covered in golden, yellow, purple, and blue flowers. It actually wasn't a bad drive, I made it there in less time than it normally takes me to drive to AG. I showed up and picked up 7 ducks and put them in the back of the van. I had layered the bottom with cardboard and covered that with tall grasses from the front yard. They ended up eating grass, feed, and drinking the whole drive home. The first day they gave us 3 eggs, then 5 eggs, so far the egg count goes as such (3, 5, 2, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 8) Yup, today they gave us 8 eggs from 7 ducks. Jed thinks he might have missed one yesterday, but who knows. As we have these as primarily layer ducks, I think they will work out just fine. We do not plan on eating any of these as they are still a bit skinny and will not grow to be very big. If we are to have eating ducks they will most likely be pecking or some other type. If we get a male runner in the group of chicks we get in June we'll see about keeping one to breed with our ladies. As for their coloring, we have 2 spotted (their feathers almost look black laced), 3 spotted (traditional brown and white markings), and 2 black.
We tried a couple of their eggs on Sunday with our waffles and their yolks are still not as golden as the chickens. We noticed that they have started eating more and more of the grasses so hopefully their yolks will turn a bit more golden after some time. They made the waffles really light and fluffy, but still filling. Part of that could have also been the goat's milk and goat butter we used for the waffles.
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