Duckling Disaster

The ducklings appear to have doubled in size in about a week.  Nothing scientific -- it's not like I weighed or measured them or anything -- but they are noticeably bigger!

They instinctively kept close to the big ones in the duck house, and by the end of the first night the big ones were sitting on the little ones to keep them warm.  Although I really don't think the big ones did it by choice, I think they just gave up out of sheer exhaustion from being chased around by the little ones inside their house for hours.

We kept the little ones in the duck house for a few days, and finally herded them outside for a few minutes to get the lay of the land, each day allowing a little more time outside with the big ones.

Tori (our lovable canine companion) has been the most excited out of anyone about the new babies.  She was in the car with us when we brought them home from Tractor Supply, after all.  Anytime they make noise she wants to go outside and check on them.  Anytime we lift the roof to the duck house, she's standing up on hind legs to get a better look.  Occasionally I'll hold them up so she can sniff and lick them.

(Thinking about it now, that might have been a mistake.)  She quickly learned that she can catch the little ones, pin them down with a paw and sniff and lick them 'till her heart's content, then tear off after the other one to do the same thing -- all the while ignoring our commands to "Leave it!" until she's satisfied that each of them have been kissed and sniffed thoroughly.

She gets reprimanded, of course, and sent back into the house to be sequestered as punishment.  Then later we let her back out and teach her to sit next to us while we watch them all run around the yard and splash in their pool...

...until yesterday, when the kissing and sniffing took a gruesome turn for one unlucky duckling.  Somehow the skin on her face tore away from the bill and peeled back across her forehead, exposing one eye completely and leaving the other eye with possibly only a third of her natural eyelids.

We spent an hour on a Saturday afternoon plucking grass out of her face with tweezers, irrigating the wound with saline solution, and attempting to field stitch her back together with superglue.  Twenty four hours later, she's still alive and kicking -- even drinking!

She's blind in the eye that was completely exposed, of course, and isn't very active, but she's moving around and survived the night, so that's a plus.