Our ducks

My children worked for a day at a home nearby picking up limbs, cleaning up, sweeping off the porches, etc.  They each received a duckling.  We brought home four.  This was a couple of years ago.

We really enjoyed our ducks.  They entertained us by waddling around the yard, quacking, playing in rain puddles, and swimming in a lake next to our house.  One of the drakes (male duck) would always lower his head and come after you if you ever turned your back to him.  But as soon as you turn back around to face him, he quickly straightens up like he was doing nothing.  You can almost hear him whistle innocently, “Whwhwhoo00,whwhwhoooo.”

We lost our first duck and then our second duck to a predator.  We think a dog or coyote got them during the night.  We had the last two for a long time.  They were each other’s companion all day long.  They made a handsome male and a female couple.

After reading Beatrix Potter’s book, The Tale of Jemima Puddleduck to Isaac, we began calling her Jemima.  She would go through broody phases.  She would build a nest and lay eggs.  Then she would sit on her eggs.  For weeks she would sit and the drake would come by for a visit.  They would chat and just be together.  Just as we fully expected a duckling to appear, it never failed that something would clean out her nest.

We never caught anything doing it.  We do not know if it was one of our dogs, a fox, or a coyote.  We just knew that her nest would suddenly be empty and she would be at the drake’s side again.  A little while later she would pick a different nesting spot and the whole process would begin again.

The drake is lost without Jemima.

Unfortunately for us, our Jemima Puddleduck did not have the collie, Kep, to rescue her.  One day the eggs were not enough for the predator.  So now, our last female duck is gone.  My family is sad.  We feel really sorry for the drake, who is the sole duck survivor on our farm.

He is lost without his mate.  He wanders around the place.  He will not go to the lake anymore.  In his search for friendship he has been hanging out with the chickens.  They have not accepted him and will not let him in their coop.  So he sleeps alone outside the front door of the coop.

Our hearts go out to this poor drake.  We are now searching for mature ducks that we can purchase and bring home.  Our drake needs duck companionship.  He has been hanging out with the chickens so long that any day we expect him to start crowing like the duck in the movie, “Babe.”  That is just what we need, a drake and a rooster competing to announce dawn of a new day.  We hope to find some ducks soon.

Tags: Beatrix Potter, drake, ducks, jemima puddleduck

This entry was posted on Friday, October 2nd, 2009 at 6:17 am and is filed under Homesteading. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.