While most Easter baskets were packed with Cadbury Crme Eggs and Marshmallow Peeps Sunday, in other baskets the peeps came to life.

Saturday morning several parents and their children visited the colored chicks and white pekin and mallard ducklings at Gamberi Feed and Farm Supply and ultimately ended up taking home a new addition to their family.

Chad Gamberi, with Gamberi Feed and Farm Supply, said that most of the people who buy the chicks and ducklings for their children live in the country and have room to keep the animals.

“The adults want the eggs and want them as farm animals,” Gamberi said.

Those who don’t have the yard space for chickens will instead buy ducklings and raise them until they get older and then take them to a pond in the country.

“(Ducks) are very adaptable,” Gamberi said.

People who want ducks at their house year round should buy the white pekin ducklings because they don’t migrate, where as the mallards will migrate, he said. They fly north during the summer and return south during the winter.

Most mallards will return to where they were raised, Gamberi said.

Belinda Wilson of Vidalia bought two mallard ducklings Saturday and said that she had already bought two white pekin ducklings for her children for Easter presents a week prior.

“I like them,” Wilson said. “They’re loud and messy, but they’re soft.”

Wilson said she will raise them at her house and when they get old enough she plans to take them to a pond at her mother’s house in the country.

Even though chicks and ducklings make good Easter presents for children, people need to use common sense before deciding to purchase the animals, Gamberi said.

He said they’re not good city pets, only people who live in the country with lots of space and a pond for the ducks should get them.

Also, chicks and ducklings aren’t good pets for children ages 1 to 3 years old, he said.

“Those little birds are fragile,” Gamberi said. “It doesn’t take anything to break a wing.”

“People need to watch over their kids when handling (the chicks and ducklings).”

Overall, the people who bought the chicks and ducklings Saturday were very excited about their Easter purchases.

“They last longer than the candy,” Wilson said.