Except at night, when they are in secure quarters, we let our ducks roam free. We don’t have an enclosed \u201crun\u201d for them to relieve their boredom while being fed store-bought feed three times a day. Typically, we feed them once, at lock-up time in the evening and expect them to forage for the rest of their sustenance. We are hoping this will rid us of the plague of slugs that annihilate our broccoli and cabbage seedlings. Our friend, P., a long-time chicken-keeper who lives nearby, is surprised that this arrangement has worked at all. She says she would only have to turn her back to find a few feathers at the spot where a chicken was moments ago, the rest of it being in the talons of a hawk or eagle. Her chickens stay in a coop all the time. We have lost two ducks, one in her first month possibly to indigestion from being overfed slugs, and a born-blind one to motor traffic. These deaths are not arguments against our arrangement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So when the remaining two hit their second spring and got increasingly adventurous to the point of exploring beyond our property, we got concerned. There were entire days when we would, despite our searches, see them only at lock-up time, drawn by the lure of store-bought duck feed a.k.a Duck Doritos. Then one day, it was getting dark and they were not back. Our ducks are Anconas, dubbed the Holstein of ducks due to every individual having unique black and white markings. This makes them easy to spot, for humans and predators alike. We found our ducks in a neighboring 100-acre hayfield, right in the middle of it, with nary a bush or tree nearby for them to flee under.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since then, I have put up two-feet high fencing in flat places and dumped brushwood in uneven areas to discourage them from venturing towards the hayfield. They have found gaps in this arrangement and I have plugged them. So far, it seems I’m winning and they are safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every morning, when I open their house, I find two jumbo-sized eggs. Given that we only give them a cup of food between the two, I consider this close to magic. One recent morning, there was only one egg in the house. Maybe one is taking a break, I figure. It was a cold, twenty degree Fahrenheit mid-spring morning. I let them out and proceed to break up the lid of ice in their water tub a few dozen feet away. When I turn around from this task, I see only one duck. The other is nowhere to be seen. I look everywhere in a hundred foot radius. I’ve never seen them not together. This duck is quacking. Fearing the worst, I start looking for feathers and trails of blood. There’s nothing. She has vanished without a trace. It must have been a particularly elegant predator. Or am I hallucinating? Did only one duck come out of the house? Did the predator get her at night? That would explain the one egg. I thoroughly examine the house but find no signs of a breach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I give a handful of unscheduled feed to console this duck and go in to lick my wounds and mourn the death of a duck and our free-ranging arrangement. Ducks are social animals. How would this solo duck fare? By herself, she would be even more vulnerable. I’m expecting more ducks in a few weeks, but they would be newly hatched ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I brush my teeth, have a cup of tea and come out again. Now there is no duck to be seen. What! Did the predator hang around long enough for me to go in to get the second one? \u201cDucks! Ducks!\u201d I cry out more in anguish than in hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There used to be a barn near the entrance to our property. In time, water had got under it and destroyed the foundation. The insurance company had us demolish it. The concrete floor was broken up and turned into a gravel parking pad. A friend has left his spare SUV there. It hasn’t moved in a month. Next to it is our occasionally-used pickup truck. I see both our ducks running towards me from that direction. Praise the Lord!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next morning when I let the ducks out, I again find only one egg in the house. But this time I notice one duck waddle off, in great haste, toward the parking pad. I see her go under the SUV, next to the wheel on the driver side. She’s working fast, digging away in the gravel. I have a good guess about what she’s doing, so I let her be and go in for breakfast. When I come out, the ducks are foraging together contentedly, \u201csnarfeling\u201d for bugs in the grass. I look under the SUV. There is a four-inch depression in the gravel next to the wheel. In it are two eggs, one warm, one cold. I will have both for lunch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Except at night, when they are in secure quarters, we let our ducks roam free. We don’t have an enclosed \u201crun\u201d for them to relieve their boredom while being fed store-bought feed three times a day. Typically, we feed them once, at lock-up time in the evening and expect them to forage for the rest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shayok.com\/foodloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shayok.com\/foodloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shayok.com\/foodloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shayok.com\/foodloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shayok.com\/foodloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.shayok.com\/foodloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":267,"href":"https:\/\/www.shayok.com\/foodloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions\/267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shayok.com\/foodloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shayok.com\/foodloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shayok.com\/foodloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}