New members of the team

Yesterday I added 4 new members to the flock. I added two boys and two girls. Although one of the boys and both the girls are ducks, not chickens. However, the other boy is a white silkie rooster. All of them are about 3 years old. One of the call ducks is perfectly white and the other two are of the mallard type. They are so cute.

"Call ducks were originally known as Coy ducks or decoy ducks from the Dutch word de kooi meaning 'trap'. Willughby, writing in 1678, described how Coy ducks were used to catch wildfowl. The tame ducks were fed at the entrance to great traps constructed in the form of a 'pipe'. Wild fowl were enticed down by the quacking (calling) of the tame birds, and then caught and slaughtered for the commercial market. These early decoy ducks may not have been like the Dutch Call ducks we know today; they may have been decoys by training rather than breed." -- from callducks.net