We are enjoying a mild February with temperatures around 0 degrees Celsius and some fresh snow almost every day. Thanks to the availability of water in and around the duckhouse (as described in this post), our ducks have been able to do winter swimming a lot lately.
We use a sturdy rectangular plastic container from the home repair store, normally used for mixing concrete and other similar building materials. As it turns out, the container is large enough for three ducks taking a bath at a time.
The duck with the “angel wing” is Diversant, one of the first ducks we bought three years ago, and one of the most frequent visitors of the “winter bath”.
In the video below, you can also observe the characteristic behavior of ducks when enjoying water – they sometimes pick at each other’s feathers. Perhaps it’s some sort of a social ritual of the female ones.