The Duck Days of Summer - Part 2

Now for the birds you’ve never seen.

A few months ago we connected with a retiring duck farmer (at one point he raised 700+ birds on his land) and purchased some of his flock. He was liquidating his Muscovies, so we bought 23 birds with the intention of slaughtering most for meat and keeping a few for breeding. The meat is leaner than mallard-descended ducks, but still very good. We lost 5 due to a mystery that is now resolved thanks to an avian expert (which, I will write about another day), butchered 14, and kept 4 females.

Mrs. Little is all-black and looks like the Little described earlier. Mrs. Brown is a beautiful brown and white that reminds me of a Britney Spaniel. Then we kept 2 white and black speckled females, one of who we fondly call Escapy (Esk-uh-pee) because, well, she is capable of escaping from anything or anywhere.  They don’t lay eggs quite yet, but will soon. Instead of quacking, the females trill. It is a beautiful noise—just listen. We will breed them with Little in the future, and hopefully have a self-sustaining meat source that is very low maintenance. They are less socialized than our other birds and are still getting used to the idea that I feed the ducks kitchen scraps off the back porch. They often miss the memo until everything’s been devoured.

Mrs. Brown

Mrs. Little and Friends

The other muscovies... NOM/*tear*
(Seared duck breast on a bed of sweet potatoes & chanterelles with a cherry balsamic reduction)

Our last 5 ducks came around Easter as day-olds. They are all females and all Khaki Campbells. As an experiment, we didn’t “hand-raise” these babies and instead put them with the other ducks early on. They enjoy following around any brown duck (Golden or Khaki Campbell) to the water, food, or foraging, but particularly love cuddling close to Mama Duck. They gather outside her nestbox during the day and attempt to guard her against anything that comes near. When they are outside, they can be found stumbling as they run down the hill and tripping over their long legs. They are as uncoordinated as toddlers and as awkward as teenagers. Eventually, they will lay eggs too.

The babies following Goldie

And then there is Edgar (blind and/or brave duck). He's not new, as you may remember. but he deserves his own spotlight. He’s still blind. He’s still a little neurotic. Yes, he still walks in circles and can’t get in and out of the duck house on his own, but he is lovely all the same. When Ms. Duck spent so long rehabilitating her leg this winter, Edgar joined her to make sure she wasn’t lonely. When the baby Khakis got introduced to the adult ducks, Edgar spent the first week with them inside their house helping them get acclimated. And when the little girls from down the street desperately want to hold and pet a duck, Edgar is the guy for the job.  

 

Just keep spinning, just keep spinning

 

And those, friends, are our 25 ducks/ducklings. We’ll let you know if Mama Duck hatches her first clutch next month and make sure we post pictures more regularly now that the weather is nice. J

TTFN!

Backyard Expansion

We've been hard at work expanding the duckies' territory. We've enlarged "their" yard and are in the process of training them to stay close by in "our" yard.

Butry posing for the camera with her Khaki Campbell flock behind her and the "little ones" exploring beyond.

(Read more after the jump)

Of Greater Consequence

We were only going to be gone for a little while. Just a quick trip. 2 hours . Max.

And that’s all the time we were gone for.

Dusk settled in around our car as we pulled into the driveway. It was quiet but it often is this time of day. 

“You bring the stuff in, and I’ll put the ducks to bed,” I directed to Mr. Bee as I slammed the car door and rushed toward the duck pen. No ducks were in sight. Some nights they go into their house without assistance when the sun begins to go down or they get chilly. I love nights like these. So, so easy. All I have to do is put Edgar [AKA Blind and/or Brave duck] inside.

I checked the Edgar’s usual spot and found emptiness. Maybe, just maybe, he found his way into the house?

Nearly impossible, but worth looking.

I leaned over to poke my head inside the Duckmahal and take stock. Only I didn’t get very far. The Duckmahal’s main door was already latched.

I looked closer.  It was latched improperly, but very intentionally latched nevertheless.

“Someone put the ducks away already. Do you think J&E would have done that for us since we were out later than normal?” 

“Maybe, I mean, last night J did ask whether they had to go in at night and I told him it was because of the opossums. I’ll have to tell him that it’s okay if they’re out for a little past dark and that he doesn’t need to worry about it.”

“Crazy. They’re really great neighbors,” I replied all the while impressed that they managed to get 12 ornery ducks and one Blind and/or Brave Duck inside their house without our Pavlovian tricks. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were true duck-whisperers!

I shrugged my shoulders, rang the bell anyway and gave the already-housed ducks their 5-minutes of supper.

Inside, Mr. Bee loomed over the sink in the awkward position I know all too well as the only way to get partial cell phone reception to listen to voice mails at our homestead. “Who’s that from?”

No response.

“…ducks..[static] …inside…[skip}…so I…[skip]…[skip]…dog…[crackle]…neighbor…”

My heart rate slowed then sped up faster than it was beating before. “What? Who is that? What happened?”

Still no answer.

I jumped up on the counter, getting closer to the source in hopes of making more sense out of the broken-up message I’d walked in on half-way through.

Finally, the message was over and Mr. Bee explained. “It’s Maya. She was in our yard. In the duck yard. She had one of the ducks. In their pen. E&J got her out. The ducks all ran in their house. Except for one. They put it inside too and locked everyone up. They wanted to let us know what happened. They said no one looked hurt.”

Maya is the one neighborhood dog that has taken an interest in our property and our livestock. Despite fencing, the 6 month old husky finds her way into our place by any means available. Tonight, it was the back gate we left open, thinking we’d only be gone a little while.

Most of the lessons we’ve learned in the country, we’ve learned the hard-way: experience. In the city, we would usually discover the error of our ways just before we made a decision. Other times, it would be right afterward, but they were usually trivial in nature. For example, if you find something you are obsessed with at Trader Joe’s, buy a lot of it before it disappears. Every time you go to the store. Because one day, it will be gone. (Do you remember those seaweed rice puffs?) It’s also important to keep a log of when you called and whom you spoke with when trying to resolve a bug infestation at your apartment complex. Or a leak in your wall, for that matter. Lastly, QFC brand bacon is not very tasty, even when it’s on sale.  Especially when it’s on sale. The only big exception to our trivial rule was the time we bought a used car that later showed up on consumer reports’ “worst used cars” list. That one had some lasting (read: expensive) consequences.

In any case, our learning curve now is one that is both steeper and of greater consequence. It has greater risks but also greater potential for reward. One lesson that we’ve taken to heart tonight is that we really do have some pretty amazing neighbors. Well, the ones without dogs that is.

Slaughter Day--Rescheduled (part one)

It looks like our week of unfortunate events hasn't ended yet. Or at least, it hadn't as of last night.

We came home to a trailer load of wood from a family member (woo!) and spent our first hour unloading the firewood instead of practicing our usual routine of duck tending. (Hopefully, we'll receive clearance from the chimney sweep and be able to burn that wood sometime soon.) After the wood was unloaded and we said goodbye, we turned to the ducks. The gate wasn't latched all of the way so I immediately started counting beaks.

12.

That's two short of our total flock. We looked all around the yard without success. Then we checked their house. Two ducks were laying quietly inside, with one duck's neck wrapped around the body of the other, as if in an embrace. At seeing us, they stirred but didn't do much else. Mr. Bee brought his hand into the house and they moved. Or tried to move. The duck that had been embraced by the other dug its beak into the wall and tried to stand up--on one leg--without much success. The other leg hung there, limp and dangling.

It was serious. We tried to pick the duck up, but the other duck stepped up its role as protector and went on guard. It circled the lame duck, wrapped its neck around its poor friend, and cheeped the most kind and soothing cheeps you've ever heard.

We eventually removed the duck with the limp leg and brought it inside for examination. With our favorite duck book in hand, we searched the pages of injuries to look for the proper treatment and double-checked with online sources.

The poor duck's hip was either broken or dislocated. If a break comes below the "knee," it will often heal with a quick popsicle stick splint. Above the "knee," it gets a little trickier. We called 6 vets. We researched for two hours.

Nothing could be done.

We thought it would make our decision easier if the duck was blind/brave duck who continually gets separated from the crowd and primarily walks in circles. We thought it would be easier if maybe it was a boy and already slated for slaughter.

Neither of these was the case.

Our lame duck was an otherwise healthy female with a very bad injury.

And so, last night, we killed our first duck.

UPDATE: One of Mr. Bee's students learned of our situation and offered to name the injured duck, even after her passing. She will now be known as Jerome.