Our little chickling has been giving us the run-around today. We decided to let it, Pear and the ducklings out of their run as it was warm (ish) and dry (ish) and it is so much better if they can wander and explore and free range. Well, that was the plan!! We put food and water outside as well as inside, with the outside food being covered such that the larger birds could not (easily) access and so demolish all those lovely chick crumbs.
Little chickling was a sight to behold as it raced around after its mum and ‘siblings’ (both of whom are twice the size), all the time cheeping away. Trouble was that despite being ‘able’ to keep up, it simply did not keep up and so stopped running, turned the volume up on its cheeping and then waited for mum to come back and claim it… which unfortunately she did not!!
We have noticed before that chicks and chickens, along with turkeys and their poults ‘talk’ all the time when they are out and about and, in order to stay together, seem to rely on listening to each other as much as ‘seeing’ each other. Our Muscovy ducks on the other hand, rely far less on sound and in fact, most of the time it seems that mother duck simply expects her ducklings to keep an eye on her and not get lost!
We re-united our chickling no less than FOUR times with Pear and began to wonder if we might need to try to give him to Queenie again!! The weather slightly saved us as it began to rain and get a tad cold and so Pear headed back inside with her three charges and spent the rest of the afternoon/ evening dabbling in the straw, drinking and eating!!
At shutting up time all three youngsters were tucked under mum who was, rather sweetly, lying down next to dad: our male Muscovy, Grape.