A story about Ducks

A little tidbit of information about our four ducks, Quasi, Susie Q and their ducklings.

When we first looked up the information on Craigslist it sounded like a wonderful set up: a breeding pair with two baby ducklings. The price was very reasonable so we took off, excited, for a tiny little town called Elma. Now there's not much in Elma except for a nuclear reactor that never got finished (funding dried up 18 months before completion) and a bunch of little farming communities. Quaint. Perfect to find ducks! I was excited, imaging how cute the ducks would be, tucked in under our arms as we secured them into the wire cages for transportation back home. Whitney was equally excited for the duck's slug-eating properties.

We get to the woman's farm, which is a beautiful piece of property nestled against wetlands and forest. She leads us into the barn and oh my god! MUSCOVY DUCKS ARE ENORMOUS! Call me naive but I had been thinking along the lines of Mallards or call ducks. What Whitney forgot to tell me is that these ducks (especially the drake) is roughly the size of a cocker spaniel. Yes, the dog kind of spaniel.

I look at the box we brought and then back at the drake. There was no way it was going to work. The little mama and her babies, sure. But this drake was BIG and had no intention of "coming quietly." Luckily the woman must have gotten a special certification in duck wrangling because she pounced on this giant bird and in the midst of a flurry of feathers and indignant squawking, she had him captured and shoved him into a larger box she thankfully had on hand. The ducklings were harder because they're tiny and fast but eventually she had them rounded up. Then we were on our merry way. The entire way back I'm wondering how on earth we're supposed to get these big birds into our pen.

Fortunately I turned out not to be too shabby at catching birds myself but I'm impressed at the Drake's sheer size and strength! Now we've settled them in, dug a little makeshift pond, and they seem to be adjusting fairly though I still can't get them to use the dog igloo shelter. The mama had one at her old home so I'm not sure why she isn't using this one. Might be an access issue with the lip being too high. We'll have to experiment a little.