Penny and Matilda

Warning...This is probably highly boring for anyone other than myself, but as I'm using the blog as a way to document my personal history, I needed to include it.

It stayed light very light out on Tuesday evening. I remember at around 8:30pm or so thinking that it looked more like 6:00pm.

I was out working in the yard and saw all three ducks in the pond swimming around. I decided to wait a little while before putting them in their pen for the night since it was still light and they seemed to be enjoying the extra play time.

When Brian and Jake got home from their baseball game, I asked Brian to help me get the ducks in--(it was about 8:45pm)--and still light! But when we walked to the back yard, we noticed that only two ducks were standing on the bank.

Little Peep was the one missing and she was no where to be found. We looked for her everywhere and I was in a frantic state. At one point we realized that something must have killed her although we could see no evidence of it at the time.

The next morning, my neighbor called me and asked me if one of my ducks was missing because his son had seen a dead duck in the road in the new development behind us. There was no way she could have walked that far, so it was clear that some animal had dragged her or flown her there. She was around 7 pounds, so that limited a hawk. We are pretty convinced it was a raccoon based on the condition that she was found in.

My neighbor Jeannie drove over to get her body and bring it home to examine. We will bury her in a few days...

I felt literally sick when I found out Little Peep had been taken. She was one of my original females. I only have one original duck left. The saddest part of the whole thing is that her sister was heartbroken and wouldn't leave her pen for almost an entire day. Brian says that animals don't have emotions, but I say he's crazy! This poor little duck just sat there and wouldn't eat even strawberries...

She still continues to be out of sorts, but she's at least leaving her pen and seems to enjoy foraging...

This whole thing presented a dilemma as I feared that if something else happened to one of the other two ducks, the one remaining would be a lonely mess--

It was too late in the season to get more ducklings, so I decided to find an adult female to bring into the mix. Fortunately, I found a place called Last Chance Ranch which is about 45 minutes away that had several ducks that needed homes.

My neighbor, Jeannie, drove up with me and the girls to check it out. When we got there, we found about 6 ducks hanging out in a pen full of pure mud and poop.

The white domestic duck (pekin) that they had was a female and apparently, she had a buddy who was a little brown trout runner. They had been brought to this place as Easter ducklings, and had formed a strong bond with each other, so I decided to adopt them both together...

What was I thinking not wearing my mucking out boots?! It's hard to tell, but this mud was at least 5 inches deep--It was like quicksand!--I'm actually standing on a board in this picture...

Trying to capture this poor thing was a bit of a challenge!...

It was like a circus!--At one point I forgot to close the carrier after I had put the one duck in, so I had to catch her all over again! arrrrrrrgggg

curious bystanders...

After we got the ducks home, I filled up a wash basin to get them cleaned off before putting them in their pen...

The kids helped me come up with the name of "Matilda" for the pekin...(Tilley for short)

This one we named Penny...she's just a little thing...barely 3 pounds...

Runner ducks are often used for herding. They have very long necks and look like bowling pins when they stand up. They are sometimes referred to as

"penguin ducks"...

Look who's head popped up when he heard the unfamiliar quacks...

Here is Jeannie holding Tilley after her bath...

Safely tucked in their cage for the night...

Never in a million years would I have guessed 6 years ago, while living in Manhattan, that I would ever need to purchase something like this!

The drake has been horribly aggressive and territorial, and has been trying to mate with Tilley...(the new pekin)...When ducks mate, the male bites the back of the female's neck sometimes to the point of breaking the skin. He wouldn't let up on her, so I called the feed store where I buy my duck supplies and they suggested this product..."Rooster Booster". It's a tar based solution that you put on the back of the female's neck. The taste of it is supposed to discourage the male from biting her. It hasn't really worked as I would have hoped...so I've had to resort to separating them.

The thing that was most creepy was the label on the bottle that says

"controls cannibalism"--

Good hell! What did I get myself into?!

Anyway, that's what has been on tap over the past week...It's been chaotic and frustrating. I have no idea how I'm ever going to train these two new ones to come into their pen at night. I'm a little nervous about how it's all going to work out...I hope the male duck can get his overactive libido under control!

MEN!