Sexing

How's that for a blog title? Different anyway! What I have been pondering though is purely duck related. We have nine healthy ducklings who are growing quickly and I have been wondering how to tell the boys from the girls.

So I sent this family portrait to lovely Rosie in NSW,  and she quickly got back to me with her opinion.

"The 3 lovely fawns have no colour down the centre of each feather, and I've only ever seen these grow up to be drakes.The 2 little girls at the back have coloured 'hoods' and pale bodies, I would say they are cinnamon.others (with the exception of the one duckling in the foreground) look to be cinnamon drakes, there claret breasts are starting to colour up, and their hoods are darker, heading to dark beetle green.

The little one in the front.. hmmmm... not sure, I suspect may be a drake, but might turn out to be silver duck!!
Also I think you can start to see some size differences, the boys will be taller, bigger etc

  They look nearly old enough to quack peep test. At 8 weeks, almost (99%) of ducklings who cant quack, never will, and are drakes.  So pick them up and make them squawk and listen to the noise they make, strong deep 

quack is a duck, higher squeak is a drake :)" 

Thanks Rosie!! If you are right, and it sounds like you know your ducks, then we have 6 or 7 drakes!! Oh boy. What's with the boy/girl ratio around here? It's all girls inside and boys outside. Crazy.

Anyway, as I've been stalking ducks in the garden I've also been enjoying my new $15 gumboots that I picked up at Coles yesterday, aren't they ace? Some other Daylesfordians must have discovered them too as when I went back later in the day they were all gone!

I've really got to stop wearing my every day shoes outside, 

chook/duck poo on a girls shoe can really

ruin her day. Well maybe not ruin, but it's not very pleasant....

anyway, my new boots are so comfy I really have no excuse.

Can you handle some more earth shattering bird related news? Hope you're sitting down for this one....guess who's laying eggs? Little, smooth, adorable, clean eggs? Yep, that big old fluff ball, Mama Chook! She disappeared for a little while this morning and after searching high & low I found her in the old dog kennel, nestled up on a pair of sweet little eggs. Her chicks were a bit horrified, poor babies. Anyway, I've taken her eggs away so she doesn't go all broody. After all she isn't going steady with anyone so.... she would have been sitting there forever.

April is almost over folks, isn't that crazy? How fast is this year going? Too fast. Lots to enjoy along the way though, like this new painting that I bought yesterday. It's been sitting in our local petrol station (strange but true), along with a handful of others, and I've been eying it off for a few weeks. The colours are much brighter in real life, this photo doesn't do it justice.  Locals will recognise it as our own gorgeous Wombat Hill.

 There was a lot of excitement at our little school today as several Hawthorn footy players turned up to do a clinic with the kids. Wow! Rosie really went for it! It was a lot of fun and I was really impressed with the players, they were so good with the kids.  Shame they weren't Tigers but oh well...:)

So another week has flown by, have you had a good one? Tomorrow night we are off to Phillippa's for a Royal Wedding get together, yay! I need to come up with a English style dish to take along...cucumber sandwiches? Scones? Any suggestions? Hope you have a happy Friday lovely friends, see you soon xo