The Duck Family – 3

The ducklings are growing – and how they grow…. below are some pictures from about ten days ago.

They actually have already feathers which you cannot see on these pictures but I’ll add more / newer pictures when I’m back from Shanghai over the weekend.

One day (Aug 6th), we had to clean up the balcony, so I put them in the bath tub with lots of water and cleaned up the balcony. It seems, they were tired and also had a bit of a cold. So I spent hours with them inside (see picture), caring and warming them up.

My wife drove to a supermarket (and let me tell you this: It’s near impossible to find an open supermarket in Germany at 22:30) to get some camomile tea, which we read, would help.

In fact, she found an open supermarket at the “Reeperbahn” and bought some camomile tea there. Yes, in the aftermath, we now know that camomile tea really helps ducks with a cold. When you look closer at one of the ducklings lying on me in a towel, you see that her nose was “leaking” (I don’t know how to say it in english). Anyhow, camomile tea helped and next day they were feeling good again. Actually, the one you can see on the picture was even sneezing. But after keeping them warm and giving them camomile tea, everything was over.

Now, 3 weeks from today, we’ll need to bring them to the Alster and let them go … I’m pretty sure it will be a tough time since I really bonded with them… those little, nerving, waking-me-up-at-five-o’clock, loud, … sweet ducklings – it is a strange experience to see them growing in your hands… feeding them, taking care of them, really feeling sad when they don’t feel good…

BTW: The single-duckling pictures are photos of “Tick” (Huey), as we can now definitely identify them… He (or she) is the most robust, strong. “Trick” (Louie) is the fastest growing with respect to feathers and “Track” (Dewey) is the smallest one of them. Trick and Track (Louie and Dewey) are also the two most cuddly, i.e. they really want to cuddle with me. Huey doesn’t, he/she is mostly running away, except when I have him/her in a towel lying on me (like in the picture below).

Funny thing: Since the door to the balcony is a glass door, they can look inside. When I pass the door, they (all three of them) immediately come to the door and start calling for me (“feeeep”). When I open the door, they immediately run away to eat and drink – as long as I stand there and they can see me with the open door. When I close (or even hint at closing) the door, they come back immediately at the door calling for me again..

Anyway, have fun with the pictures below 🙂

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