"Hnh?" he grunted as he glanced over from his Farkle game.
"I could totally make money off of eggs."
"Can you get me a drink of water?" he asked, finally noticing I was speaking to him.
"Chicken eggs are a dime a dozen, but I bet if I sold farm fresh duck eggs, I could really clean up."
"Duck eggs?" he replied incredulously.
"Yeah, ducks."
"Can you even eat those?"
"Course you can, they're nutritional gold, french chef's love 'em, second to none for baking--"
"How much is it going to cost?" he cut me off.
"Well, I can feed them out of the kitchen cupboard, so pretty much just the cost to buy the babies and building a shelter."
"Cool."
I started shopping around hatcheries, I had a good idea what I wanted, khaki campbells for their egg endurance, one hatchery wanted $41.00 to ship less than 10 ducklings, and my debit card collapsed in a fit of laughter. Finally I settled on Hatchery number 3 out of Texas. Their price on sexed birds (don't get excited, that only means I have a shot at hosting ladies night in the duck house, not a baby shower) was pretty reasonable, and they didn't have a prohibitive minimum purchase. They also had a pretty good reputation on the internet in terms of reviews, and a habit of tossing bonus boyos to make sure the girl'os stayed warm enough in shipping. The final decision was based on the assumption that the journey by mail from Texas to Arizona would be less extreme on the hatchlings.
I sat on my order for a while-- anticipating a time when I would have some cash free enough to blow on my venture. Finally I had an ebay auction that ended favorably enough that I finally had some seed money in my paypal account.
The second that payment hit the account I was filling my order for 12 khaki campbell "pullets" (I was under the impression that 'pullet' only applied to chickens, but eh-- I'm hardly expert enough to quibble.)
By this point I had already waited 3 months from inception to purchase date, so I'm sure that the gentle reader can understand how flabbergasted this farmwife was to discover that the next available hatch date was yet ANOTHER month away.
*sigh*.
Finally the delivery day arrived. As I was roused from a sound saturday sleep on a holiday weekend by the postal clerk at the crack of 6 am, ("we have ducklings for you. Come get them at the back door of the post office") I leaped up with the excitement of a kid at Christmas.
Farm animals though they may be, I love new creatures coming into the family.
I inspected the box and was saddened to discover that of 12 ducklings, only 8 survived the trip, and even worse 3 more perished throughout the day. They also did not send any freebies.
At the moment I have 5 brave soldiers still standing in the brooder, with prayers that they all make it with the help of my attentive care.
Hopefully tuesday the hatchery will get ahold of me and we can discuss making good on my order (they do promise a live delivery guarantee after all.) If my rate of survival is somewhere south of 50%... Im not sure I want them to put more of them in the mail... and I definitely dont want to have to wait for another hatch in a month.
I've been looking for a closer hatchery in the future. Not because the hatchery I chose does bad business, but I can't stand the thought of such sweet babies dying on such a long, hot trip. Got a favorite hatchery? drop a comment! If I get a refund from hatchery number 3 I'll be looking to pick up another 7 hen-ducklings to round out my dozen.
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