Day 8

This is when Barnaby pooped on Lou's shoulder:

Day 7

Lookit how big he's getting...

Day 6

Day 5

These photos get less eventful. Now I'm just trying to get him to stay still so I can document how much he's gotten bigger.

Day 4

Today Barnaby learns how to swim! It's pretty exciting and he catches on quickly. Well, he floats automatically so he's got that going for him.

Day 3

Barnaby has a lot of visitors today. We teach him how to eat and drink.

Bored Barnaby:

Day 2

I've moved him into his new brooder. Look how clean it is! He's also getting fluffy. Barnaby was feisty ever since he was in the egg. I'd see the egg rolling around all over the place. He kept trying to hop/walk around even though his muscles weren't ready yet.

Day 1

I wanted Barnaby to imprint on me by ensuring that he saw me first when he broke free from his egg. I printed out some photos of my face and face planted them onto the windows of the incubator. Regrettably I was not there to see him come out and one of my house-mates saw him before I did! Fortunately, Barnaby still follows me around which is all I really wanted. He's pretty ugly today.

He fit in here!

Day -2 or so

The first sign of life! Well, okay, not the first. I'd been candling it every week and noticing blood veins, but this is a crack that would be impossible for me to make! I picked it up to candle and felt some tapping on the sides, then noticed the crack, then panicked a little, then regained my senses and prepped the incubator for hatching mode. The egg on the bottom right also had a crack and moved a little, but unfortunately a duckling, which I would have named Peabo, did not emerge. RIP Peabo.

An Explanation

For whatever reason, I became attached to the idea of having a duck follow me around. I think this might have had its roots in a duck stamp art competition my art teacher made me enter every year during high school. People started associating me with ducks and I suppose I just got used to it.

Fast forward to the here and now.

I was lucky enough to meet a coworker through mutual friends, who happened to own a ranch, which happened to house ducks, who happened to be laying eggs. I quickly ordered a Hovabator with an autoturner off of Ebay, got my share of duck eggs and waited patiently and nervously for a whole month, until one day, July 22, 2010, I became a mother duck!

So here I am now, with a silly blog to document all of my first born's achievements (like pooping) and its growth.

Enjoy.