The four duck-a-teers have arrived

For quite a few weeks i have been trying to find some young white Indian runner ducklings as this breed is very good for sheepdog work. As the name suggests they run and don't fly plus they flock together well. After a few frustrating false starts i contacted a lady who had some 5/6 week old ducklings which were a bit older than i originally wanted.
We chatted on the phone and i agreed to have two white crested runners and two coloured ones. Duck breeders love people who want ducks for sheepdog work as drakes are hard to get rid of, you don't want females in case the eggs break inside the female.
As we were both going to be at the same event that weekend i arranged to pick them up there. When i first saw them i cannot say i was that impressed as they looked quite scrawny but you can see that they are going through a bit of a moult. The little black and white who is the youngest has not started to moult so is very cute and its going to be interesting to see him grow up.
The information on the breed does say they can be very skittish and nervous which these are especially compared to the other two ducks i used to start herding work with. I have also now made an enclosure where they cannot see the dogs at all as the others bonded a bit too much with the dogs as they could see them whenever the dogs went out into the garden. Hopefully over the next few weeks their feathers will grow and i can get some nice pictures of them plus of course start working them with the dogs.
If you have viewed the online video of our first attempts at duck herding you will have seen Whizzy having a go. When i went for my last sheepdog training lesson with Pogo i let her have a go with the sheep. As i thought at first she was scared of them but as i got them moving she got into her stride. Im not going to say she is the next big thing in sheepdog work but for a 50 % poodle she did quite well.