GORE BAY—They have names like Sunny, Zippy, Sheldon, Rollo and Fuzzy Feet, and when they had to leave, a bunch of Grade 2 students at Charles C. McLean were certainly upset.
“It’s sad,” stated one of teacher Colleen VanderWeerden’s students last week as ducklings that had been raised by the class over the past few weeks were going to be moving to a new home.
“We had 11 duck eggs in an incubator in the class, and 10 hatched,” Ms. Vander Weerden told the Recorder. She explained that as of this interview, “the ducklings are between a week to 10-days-old,” having hatched between Monday to Thursday of the previous week.
Ms. Vander Weerden said her family has three ducks at their home, and she had collected the eggs to be brought to her class to be raised by the Grade 2 students.
“The eggs spend 24-28 days in the incubator,” said one of the students. The eggs were candled using a flashlight so the students could see the ducks as they grew, prior to hatching.
While the ducks were taken care of during the day by the students who fed them, providing water to drink and cleaned the birds, each evening Ms. Vander Weerden took them to her home. The ducklings will be full size in eight weeks time.
This is the third year the Grade 2 class has taken part in this program.
The 10 ducklings will all be going together to an area farm, added Ms. Vander Weerden.
